


Forgotten but Not Gone

by acareeroutofrobbingbanks



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: 2002-2016, AU: Happy Ending, Adults, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 01:40:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20331928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acareeroutofrobbingbanks/pseuds/acareeroutofrobbingbanks
Summary: In the five years since Ed had started, his driving business had boomed. So, the fact that Tozier was famous enough to warrant a fake name might have been a big deal once, but no longer. Ed was professional with everyone, and he didn’t get celebrity jitters. They were just people.Except, okay, maybe he was a little bit excited about meeting Richard Tozier for the first time. He was a comedian, one of the younger cast members of SNL, and a household name. It was all very cool and fun and interesting, but what made him so interesting to Ed was that he was gay. Openly gay. Like, on TV and everything talked about boyfriends gay. And sure, the odd sketch put him in a tight shirt and gave him a lisp, but somehow even playing gay caricatures was played off as a joke for him, like he was making fun of straight people rather than the other way around.OREddie and Richie move away from Derry and forget all about their childhood. They come together and fall in love anyway.





	1. Chapter 1

**November 14th, 2002. 9:07 PM**

Ed was leaning on the gate just outside the door where the domestic arrivals would spill out into the rest of the airport. His shoulders were slumped, his eyelids drooping, even the sign he was holding had drooped forward, the name of the man he was collecting turned inward. The electronic board that showed the time of the arrivals coming in had been changing all night - the LAX to JFK flight switched from 8:00 to 8:15, 8:15 to 8:45, 8:45 to 9:05. The clock next to the sign had finally just flipped to “Arrived,” and Ed let out one long sigh of relief. _Finally_.

Though his client was certainly still a ways away, Ed straightened himself out, reflexively brushed out his suit. He was known for his professionalism, even if his client this evening was, well, a comedian. To be fair, he wasn’t just any comedian. This was Richard Tozier, _the _Richard Tozier, Saturday Night Live star at only 26, famous author, a household name. So much of a household name that the cardboard sign Ed had made himself with careful precision earlier that same day said, per Tozier’s request, “Robert Gray.” 

Meeting a celebrity was no longer a hallmark of Ed’s life. Nor were any of their weird quirks. From the moment he had finished his business degree, Ed had gotten a loan for his first limousine. In the five years since then, his driving business had boomed. It was a fairly unmitigated success, and he already had a fleet of limos, multiple drivers working underneath him, and he himself catered to various celebrities or otherwise wealthy people flying in and out of the airports in New York and all over the city. So, the fact that Tozier was famous enough to warrant a fake name might have been a big deal once, but no longer. Ed was professional with everyone, and he didn’t get celebrity jitters. They were just people.

Except, okay, maybe he was a little bit excited about meeting Richard Tozier for the first time. He was a comedian, one of the younger cast members of SNL, and a household name. It was all very cool and fun and interesting, but what made him so interesting to Ed was that he was _gay_. Openly gay. Like, on TV and everything talked about boyfriends gay. And sure, the odd sketch put him in a tight shirt and gave him a lisp, but somehow even playing gay caricatures was played off as a joke for him, like he was making fun of straight people rather than the other way around.

Sure, Ed had seen _Will and Grace_, and he knew David Bowie and Freddie Mercury weren’t straight, but there really weren’t a lot of openly gay celebrities just wandering around in the world. Having Richard Tozier in his cab was a little bit exciting because it wasn’t often that Ed saw people like himself on television. 

He stayed focused. He kept his chin up, his shoulders straight, and his face neutral-leaning-pleasant. First impressions could be a big deal, as he knew well, and he wanted to look his best to be professional. No other reason. (Certainly nothing to do with the way the comedian’s eyes seemed to sparkle right through the TV screen when he laughed a little too hard at one of his own jokes, because Ed had been in this business far too long for a celebrity crush.)

_9:18_.

The crowd with their bags and plane-wearied expressions began to trickle out through the big metal doors, all of them looking ready to hit the hotel bar and sleep for a good long while, but Ed kept scanning the crowd, looking for a familiar face. Tozier, Tozier, he’d been stuck at the airport so long that all the men’s faces began to blur together into one pale-skinned, dark-haired, amorphous blob, turned into nothing but background blur by the dizzying fluorescent lights of the airport.

Then, Richie walked out.

(Eddie spent the better part of the next fourteen years wondering when “Richard” became “Richie,” when the man himself said no one had used that name since he was a kid, not that he minded, but it was then, in that moment, as soon as he saw him. Richie.)

Richie scanned the scant group of people waiting for passengers and gave a loose, easy grin when he saw Ed’s sign. He beamed directly up at him instead, and Ed felt his heart falter in his chest. He had aspirin in his pocket if it came to that, if he was having a heart attack just because his client was so attractive and smiling at him and all of a sudden Eddie felt like he was eleven again with his first crush and his stuttering chest and his shaking fingertips. 

Richie Tozier in person was a little bit gorgeous, but Eddie swallowed down that thought and gave him his best polite and professional smile in return. He tugged the suitcase from Richie’s hands like a good chauffeur and nodded at him. 

“Thanks for the sign,” Richie said with a yawn, relinquishing the bag and diving into conversation before Eddie could so much as say ‘hello,’ much less wish him a good evening or ask how his flight had been. “You wouldn’t believe how many people just forget and leave me to get swamped. Oh, but that sounds like a humble brag, doesn’t it? I don’t mean to be full of myself, or to complain about being famous, but it is what it is I guess. Unless you’re here to pick up a man named Robert Gray, in which case I’m being an _extra _big twat right now.”

“Regular sized twat, don’t worry,” Eddie said, then bit down on his lip hard, because he wasn’t a blushing teenager, no matter what he felt like, and there was no reason to insult the clients, even if in this case, the client started it. 

Luckily for him, Richie wasn’t the type of celebrity who wanted everyone to fall at his feet and worship him, nor was he bad at taking a joke, apparently. He roared with laughter, drawing the attention of everyone at the airport who wasn’t already looking at the gay guy from Saturday Night Live.

“Yeah, I deserve that one,” he said. “I’m guessing you’re a relatively small twat?”

“Extra-large, when I start out the evening insulting the clients, but in my defense, I’ve been stuck in this airport for a long time,” Eddie said. “I don’t know if you know this, but JFK isn’t the most interesting place in the world.”

“Sorry for the wait, next time I’ll tell them to land the plane quicker. My chauffeur demands only the best,” Richie said brightly. “Where’re we going?”

“Just downstairs,” Eddie said. “I parked in the ten-minute, drop-off only area.”

“Two hours ago?” 

“I know a guy.”

“And you’ve already hooked yourself a repeat customer.”

Eddie dropped the _Robert Gray _sign in a recycling bin on the way out and tossed a tip to the security guard working the drop off area that night on the arrivals level. He opened the back door to the limo, stashed Richie’s bags in the trunk, and when he slammed the trunk shut, found that Richie had seated himself in the passenger seat.

“You know,” Eddie said as he climbed into the car himself. “Most people rent limos to make use of them, and I hate to tell you this, but most of the functionality of this car is in the back.”

“I didn’t know if I’d be in a loner mood or a talkative mood,” Richie said. “But it was a long flight, and you seem like better company than a minibar.”

“I’m endlessly flattered,” Eddie said, pulling out into the flow of traffic. “So, Mr. Tozier, how was your flight?”

“Oh, no, don’t do that,” Richie said. He leaned his seat all the way back and put his feet up on the dashboard. Eddie pursed his lips, but didn’t say anything. “C’mon, you’re doing so well. You called me a twat, but you used the sign I asked for. I saw you bribe a security guard to park illegally. Don’t go getting all proper on me now, uh…?” he trailed off, eyebrows raised.

“Eddie,” Eddie said, unsure why he didn’t just say “Ed” like he always did. “Eddie” was a little kid name, but somehow it was all that would come to his lips. Eddie. He had gone by Eddie when he was younger, hadn’t he?

“Eddie,” Richie repeated. “I like it. So then, _Eddie_,” he seemed to turn the name over in his mouth, tasting it more than speaking it. “I’ve been living in New York City for five years and I still haven’t found a decent place to get some decent New England chowdah. You know of a place?”

“Sorry?” Eddie said.

“Chowdah,” Richie said, dragging out the ending of the word. “You sound like a New Englander, and I’m in the mood for a taste of home.”

“Ah,” Eddie said, and he racked his brain, suddenly completely blank. Had he had good chowder? Had he been to a good restaurant? Had he ever gone out to eat? He was too dazzled by Richie to remember the last time he’d eaten. “I know a place, yeah.”

“Take me there,” Richie said. “I’ll go back to my apartment after that.”

Eddie left the airport going in any direction before he actually thought of a place, then zoomed off in the direction of the last place he remembered having clam chowder on the menu. He worried about the awkward, starstruck silence, but not for long. It turned out that Richie was very good at making sure there were never any awkward silences because he _never stopped talking_.

“So then, you know, Justin Timberlake - _tiny _fuckin’ dude, hair as stiff as rocks - he says to me ‘so, if I have a friend I think might be, you know, **_gay_**, what should I do? Do you think he’s, like, into me?’ And I say to him, ‘buddy, if you’re talking about Lance, you don’t have to _do _anything, he’s the same dude he is, and he's also definitely not into you. Who would be when J.C. is standing right there?’”

Eddie laughed aloud, leaning on the steering column before trying to act like he didn’t think it was funny. It was rare that a comedian he met in real life was actually funny when he wasn’t scripted. Also, he had good taste in boyband members.

“The best guy to work with is probably Will Ferrel,” he said. “He does a spot on George Double-ya, which is a big deal for us, but he’s better at coming up with jokes than half the writers too.”

“What politician do you play?” Eddie asked. 

“I’m not serious enough to convince anyone I’m a halfway decent politician,” Richie said. “So, you know, sometimes I play Dick Cheney.”

Eddie laughed, and the running commentary went on and on. 

It took him some time, but he finally found the seafood place he remembered. He hoped it was good; Eddie never ate seafood himself, nervous around the stuff somehow, but it was a nice-looking restaurant, and all the clients he brought there seemed to like it. He pulled up to the curb and opened the door for Richie, then stood attentively at the car. Richie was halfway to the door before he turned around and gave Eddie a look like he was missing something fairly obvious.

“You wanna park that somewhere you won’t get a ticket?” he asked.

“I was going to circle,” Eddie said. Richie rolled his eyes. 

“Eat with me,” he said. “I hate to eat alone.”

“I think being your escort is a little above my paygrade, sir,” Eddie said. Richie wrinkled his nose, and Eddie felt a familiar twinge of success, like he’d scored one up on Richie in a game he didn’t even know they were playing. 

“Okay, not ‘sir,’ _never _‘sir,’” Richie said. “And is it still above your paygrade if I buy the food? And tip extra at the end of the night?”

“Are you this friendly with all your drivers?” Eddie asked, more to give Richie a hard time than because he didn’t want to come along. He actually wanted very badly to go get dinner with the famous comedian. It would feel, Eddie thought, embarrassed by himself, almost like a date.

“Only the cute ones,” Richie said, still smiling his cocky smile. Eddie felt his stomach twist as hard as if it were a damp towel being wrung out. Apparently, it would feel a lot like a date, something Eddie hadn’t had a lot of experience with. The street was dark but for the faint orange glow coming from windows, a rarity in New York, and something Eddie was quite grateful for. Hopefully it hid the rising color in his cheeks.

“Well, in that case,” he said faintly. He pulled an old parking ticket out of the glovebox and tucked it under the wipers. Richie let out a bark of laughter.

“Do you do anything legally?” he asked

“I do everything quickly,” Eddie said, feeling the teensiest bit smug. “If it’s quicker to not break any laws, I don’t mind following them. It usually isn’t, though.”

Richie still looked admiring as he ran ahead and held the restaurant door open for Eddie, before Eddie could hold the same door open for him. Was this a date? he wondered, stepping into the warm glow of the restaurant. It was almost steamy inside, compared to the November chill outdoors, and everything was lit in soft candlelight: a much more romantic aura than Eddie had intended. He didn’t have a lot of experience with dates, in truth. He had hooked up twice in college, having a panic attack after the first one and imply spending a day in bed feeling disappointed and underwhelmed after the second. He hadn’t had a real boyfriend until after he graduated, and even that was gray area. Sometimes they went out - in New York City, Eddie had realized with no small amount of shock, they hadn’t needed to be covert. They held hands in the park and kissed on street corners and often stayed in at one apartment or the other, Eddie being kissed and pressed so firmly to the ground that he could almost forget how little he trusted takeout food enough to eat a few bites. They never said boyfriend, though. They never even really said “date.” So, as Richie smiled that magnanimous smile at him, the two of them standing as close as they could without touching by the dark wood of the hostess’ podium, Eddie was left adrift wondering what, if anything, this all meant.

Soon they were seated and Richie stretched out across his side of the booth, lanky legs crossed at the ankle where they draped over the side and into the aisle. Making a show of being hyper-comfortable.

_Because he’s nervous_, Eddie’s mind supplied, though he didn’t know where the thought came from.

Another thought that Eddie realized he couldn’t trace was that of how familiar this seemed. How a part of his brain was looking at Richie, languorous and almost bored, and saw the seen with a mixture of fondness and mild irritation so worn and familiar that he might have seen it a thousand times, felt it a thousand times. Looking at Richie was like pulling on a long-lost favorite pair of jeans, and Eddie couldn’t fathom why any mild celebrity crush would morph into this.

“Known for their fresh, Maine lobster, apparently,” Richie read off the menu, reminding Eddie that he hadn’t picked his up yet. “Good call.”

“Big fan of lobster?” Eddie asked. “Or Maine, I guess?”

“Frankly, I’d call myself more of an enemy of Maine,” Richie said, then snorted to himself. “Hey. Hey. Enemy of the state, get it?”

Eddie made a point not to laugh, though it was kind of funny.

“I grew up there,” Richie said. “So, I miss it in the way anybody misses childhood. It was nice not to have to worry about taxes, I guess, but I think being able to drive and have sex is better.”

“Cheers to that,” Eddie said. “Childhood is just the trauma you spend the rest of your life recovering from.”

He sat back a little from Richie, just then realizing that he had been leaning in ever closer to him. He managed to sit on his inhaler, and rolled his weight to keep the plastic from digging into his leg too badly. 

“But, uh, whereabouts in Maine?” he asked. “I’m from there too.”

“Just some evil little one-horse town,” Richie said, rolling his eyes for good measure. “Called Derry, some thirty miles away from Bangor-”

“But hold on,” Eddie interrupted him. “_I’m _from Derry, Maine.”

Richie’s eyes widened fractionally, then narrowed.

“Did we know-?” he began to ask, when the waitress sidled up to their table. Eddie leaned back again, this time noticing that he’d been bent halfway over the table, leaning into the conversation dramatically. 

“You boys ready to order?” the waitress asked, bubbly and cheerful. Eddie slumped back in his seat and scanned the menu once before asking her for a salad and extra bread. Derry. Geez, but he hardly ever thought about Derry anymore. He hadn’t been out of high school ten years, but it seemed that he’d already forgotten the place.

“Not taking the restaurant up on their fare?” Richie asked. 

“I’m- I’m not a big fan of seafood,” Eddie said, which was technically true, though he really didn’t eat seafood because he heard about how mussles were alive when you ate them and could cling to the insides of your throat, choking you, and how too much fish would build up walls of fat in your arteries, and how other things from the sea could kill you with a single mouthful. Too much risk, not enough reward, but he didn’t need to sound batshit on his first date, if it even was a date. 

“Well, some fucking host I am, but hey, who can resist a good-?”

“How old are you?” Eddie asked. 

“0234,” Richie said. “Why?”

“I’m the same age,” Eddie said, even more disconcerted. “And Derry’s a pretty small town. We must have known each other.”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t forget a face like that,” Richie said. “Maybe we were in different classes.”

“I suppose so,” Eddie said, not really supposing so at all. “Did you know a- a Bill when you were there?”

Eddie said the first name that popped into his head, and even that took an oddly long time to pop in there. He was sure he must have had friends, for he had happy memories - happy memories of memories, at least. But he couldn’t remember any names, oddly enough. Couldn’t place any of the memories, though he felt a sense of… something. It was stronger than fondness, but “fond” was the closest word he had to describing it. 

And the name he came up with, Bill. He couldn’t put a face to it, not really, but he knew he felt fierce loyalty when he said it, little kid loyalty, like maybe Bill was his team captain. Silly thought - it wasn’t as though his mom ever let him play sports. But.

“Think so,” Richie said, his expression lost as well, mirroring Eddie’s. “Bill… Bill… Stuttering Bill?”

“That’s the one!” Eddie said, sure it was right, though he could not really hear an audible memory of it. “I think we hung out when I was a kid.”

“Hey, me too,” Richie said with another wide grin. “Maybe we hung out with each other when we were little. Small world, I guess. Tell me, was I always this dashing?”

“I’m sure you were always one of a kind,” Eddie said with a snort, and Richie waggled his eyebrows at him. Eddie yet again bit back a laugh. He was being silly, not just comedic, but silly-flirty, silly-cute, and the proverbial butterflies in Eddie’s stomach had gone wild, beating their wings against the bars of his ribcage.

Their food came out, and if Eddie had thought that would put a hamper on the conversation, he was almost immediately proven wrong. Richie talked between bites of food, gulping down chowder in the brief moments when Eddie responded, sometimes laughing so hard at something Eddie said that he spewed flecks of his dinner onto the table. It was gross, and shouldn’t have been endearing, but Eddie was endeared. He stopped trying to lean backwards, and instead stuck out his foot after a glass of wine, hooking his toes around the back of Richie’s ankles. 

“Richie Tozier,” Eddie said, feeling lightheaded. He wasn’t supposed to drink on the job, ever. He wasn’t supposed to date the clients, ever. He wasn’t supposed to have a stupid celebrity crush, but Richie was right there and his name sounded warm and full and achingly familiar in Eddie’s mouth. “Richie Tozier,” he turned the name over on his tongue again, loving the taste of the words. “I feel like I’ve known you my whole life.”

Richie didn’t pull his foot away, but instead blinked hazily up at Eddie. 

“Do you use that line on all the pretty gay boys?” he asked.

“It- it’s not a line-” Eddie began, and Richie shook his head.

“Whyd’you call me that?” he asked. Eddie made a face, and he sighed. 

“Richie,” Richie said. “Like a little kid’s nickname.”

“Just felt right,” Eddie said. “Should I stop?”

“No,” said Richie. “I like it. Definitely shouldn’t stop. But unless my driver has a driver, you should probably have some water? Or instead you could top off the night with some of the devil’s lettuce, make for a real interesting ride to Manhattan.”

Eddie, who had already switched back to water, glared at Richie, somehow still fondly. He gulped water, and he was sure that he wasn’t drunk, but he did still feel intoxicated.

Love at first sight was bullshit, and yet.

“You know a place to park illegally where I’m going?” he asked. 

“Are you going to an apartment or a hotel?” Eddie asked. “I mean, the answer is yes, but-”

“Oh, man, it’s hard to believe you’re from Maine right now. I think only native New Yorkers are supposed to be that full of themselves,” Richie said. 

“Then you and I fit right in,” Eddie said. They were both leaning far over the table, and suddenly Richie’s hand shot forward beneath the wood, pressing down on Eddie’s thigh. His grip wasn’t at all meaty - it wasn’t even the strongest Eddie had felt, but it was firm, his eyes dark.

“Even overnight parking?” he asked. It was stupid for it to hit then, but Eddie’s breath caught too hard, stopping up his throat as surely as if it had been smothered. He jerked back, squashing against the stiff vinyl of the booth, and in a moment of romantic intensity, he ripped his inhaler out of his pocket and took in a heavy gust of it.

While Eddie waited for his heart to stop jackhammering in his chest, he quickly became aware of the stuttered apologies Richie was making. It took him a moment to tune in still, catching wind of the sentence in the middle of it.

“-mean to insinuate, or anything, I just figured - but I shouldn’t have assumed-”

“Rich,” Eddie gasped, gripping the edge of the table with his free hand. Richie stopped talking, and Eddie managed to regulate his breathing, a little. “It’s just my asthma. I’m fine.”

“Oh,” said Richie.

“And you didn’t, um, assume incorrectly, or anything,” Eddie said. “And I- I’m sure I can find overnight parking at your place.”

Richie’s face slid back into a smile, like that was its natural place, like it was work to keep it pinched into a frown. 

“So, we should probably get out of here,” Eddie said. “It’s pretty late. You’ll want to be getting to bed.”

“I sure will,” Richie said. 

Maybe, Eddie thought, somewhere in the blur between the restaurant and the front door of Richie’s small but comparatively lavish apartment, maybe hooking up worked best like this. Not so fast that he missed the first name, but too fast for Eddie to think about it. Every single thing about Richie seemed to knock Eddie off his feet, and he was too lost in the wind being knocked out of him to freak out about whatever came next. 

They made it all the way to the elevator barely touching, Eddie jumping when their arms brushed together as they walked. The moment the elevator doors shut, though, Richie had his hands in Eddie’s hair and their mouths pressed together. Eddie gasped into the kiss, then lurched forward, pinning Richie to the wall. His lips moved independently of his mind. Eddie seemed to overthink every kiss he had remembered, but this was instinctual. His eyes fell shut, his hands slid under the hem of Richie’s shirt. This wasn’t complicated. This wasn’t him wondering what people did with their hands. This was walking down his street in the dark and reading a well-loved novel and it was Richie’s breath hot against his lips and sleeping late Sundays and him biting at Richie’s lower lip, pulling just a little, then letting go. Their moans were like creaks in an old staircase, like the sound of coming back to someplace you knew.

The doors opened with a quiet ‘ding’ and Richie pulled himself away, dragging Eddie down the hall behind him. It was, mercifully, a short hallway.

Richie fumbled with the keys but managed to knock the door open, flip on the lights, and even say: “Welcome home,” before Eddie crushed their lips together again. 

There was no room in his head for anxiety because all there was was Richie, Richie, Richie. Richie twining his fingers in Eddie’s and pulling him deeper, deeper into the place, towards the bedroom. Richie pressed into the doorframe, gasping as Eddie wrenched his shirt over his head. The vast expanse of Richie’s chest, blank but heaving, decorated only by pinpricks of sweat. God, but if Eddie let himself focus on it his vision went hazy.

They pushed and pulled and just barely missed the bed, sliding down with a nasty thump to the ground. At this, Richie pulled back, cackling to himself while Eddie winced and rubbed his head.

“Hell of a romantic moment,” he said, and Eddie had rolled his eyes.

“You talk a lot,” he said, unsure where his sudden bravado was coming from tonight. “But I like you better with your mouth occupied.”

They crawled back onto the bed, breaking apart long enough for Richie to get Eddie out of his shirt and jacket, then for both of them to get out of their pants. And later, as Eddie’s eyelids hung heavy, all of him feeling heavy and sleepy and so satisfied he thought he might just burst, he curled into Richie’s shoulder, both of them naked but for the expensive coverlet. 

Richie mumbled something into Eddie’s hair, and Eddie looked up at him through the haze of city light pouring in through the window.

“Hmm?” he asked, unable to articulate better and unwilling to move further.

“think’m in love with you,” Richie said, followed with a similarly exhausted laugh.

“Good,” Eddie said, and there, pressed into Richie’s side, he fell asleep. He had never felt so whole, all the more so because he hadn’t realized before that moment that he had been incomplete and was so no more. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie felt like he had swallowed an ice cube all of a sudden. The sunshine-y, content feeling was dissipating like morning mist, and a sliver of cold was sliding down his chest. He tried to ignore it - tried to summon the sunshine back, but it felt as if the tiny pocket of happy had burst.   
Eddie made a sympathetic noise in the back of his throat, and before he could ask Richie - well, anything, if he wanted to exchange numbers, get coffee, have late breakfast, see Eddie later - Richie was getting dressed.   
OR  
Eddie wakes up to a man he just met who already feels like his soulmate. It's up for debate whether or not the man agrees with this assessment.

**November 15th, 2002. 8:34 AM**

Eddie rose through many foggy layers of sleep rather than waking up all at once. He wasn’t entirely sure when he became aware or what he became aware of first, but by the time he was awake enough that he could have opened his eyes, he knew where he was and who he was with.

He was in Richie Tozier’s bed, in his fancy apartment, feeling warm and well-fucked, feeling somehow dense on the bed as sunlight streamed over him, blocked out in one stripe where Richie’s arm was draped over his chest. 

_Richie Tozier, Richie Tozier, Richie Tozier_. 

Eddie felt absolutely no urge to stand up, no need to piss or eat or drink, but his muscles were stiff from a long and heavy sleep, so he rolled onto his side, managing to press his face into Richie’s chest. Richie snuffled in his sleep, turning in towards Eddie as well. 

“Think you’re in love with me,” Eddie murmured, recalling what Richie had said the night before. “So do I, I think, and I have no idea… like I’ve known you all my life…”

He trailed off and instead of talking pressed his lips against Richie’s skin - his shoulder, his cheek, wherever he could reach. He thought he felt Richie tense under his touch, just for a moment, but he was relaxed again so quickly that Eddie could have imagined it.

_This is good_, Eddie thought, too sleepy and content to speak aloud again, and he traced swirls down Richie’s side, relishing in the brush of their skin, the heat in the touch. Somewhere in the midst of this exercise he drifted back down into sleep, seeing nothing but the red shine of bright sun against his eyelids.

When he woke up again, it was because Richie had wrapped his arms around him and yanked him in close, an eager, glittering light in his eyes. His face looked oddly open and unarmed without glasses, and though Eddie loved the way he looked with glasses on, he liked this Richie too. Muted and domestic and unmasked.

Domestic. Like Eddie even knew what domestic meant to this guy. For all he knew, Richie put the moves on all his drivers. But somehow he didn’t think so.

“Good,” said Richie, his voice soft and sleep-slurred. “You’re awake.”

“Mm,” said Eddie noncommittally. “I could sleep more. Comfy in here.”

“Pretty late already,” Richie told him. “I don’t know, you and your polished shoes and your three piece suit, I thought you’d be the ‘up at six everyday’ type. It’s after noon.”

“I’m very comfy in here,” Eddie said. Richie himself felt soft, like sometime in the night he had molded to the exact shape where Eddie lay. It was nice, nice, nice, and Eddie was reluctant to think about the time spelled out on the clock in blaring red. The more he thought, the more anxieties would creep into his head, and he didn’t think he could stand that. He was too content to entertain all of his worries. 

“You taking up occupancy there?” Richie asked, and Eddie gave him a sleepy smile. Richie responded by rolling over, fumbling for his glasses on the nightstand, and sliding them back onto his nose. He then sat there for a minute, looking almost lost as he blinked focus back into his eyes, bedsheets draped loosely across his waist. 

“Did you have work?” Eddie asked, trying to bring him back down to reality. 

“Soon, yeah,” Richie said. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, away from Eddie, though he didn’t stand up all at once. “It’s Saturday, so.”

Eddie felt like he had swallowed an ice cube all of a sudden. The sunshine-y, content feeling was dissipating like morning mist, and a sliver of cold was sliding down his chest. He tried to ignore it - tried to summon the sunshine back, but it felt as if the tiny pocket of happy had burst. 

Eddie made a sympathetic noise in the back of his throat, and before he could ask Richie - well, _anything_, if he wanted to exchange numbers, get coffee, have late breakfast, see Eddie later - Richie was getting dressed. 

“I really have to head out,” he said, not glancing back at Eddie once. “So, I swear I’m not usually this big of a dick, but-”

“But you want me gone?” Eddie asked. There was a dull cramp in his chest as he asked it, not dissimilar to an asthma attack, but still he didn’t root around for his inhaler. The sting of rejection might have felt a little like the sting of losing breath, but Eddie had, to some of his friends’ surprise, been out enough times to know the difference. 

“Yeah, I mean-” Richie turned to look at Eddie, his face oddly blank. “It was really nice to meet you, and thanks for the ride-”

Eddie did not want to hear this. He pulled his pants up off the floor and put them on under the sheets, feeling very vulnerable and very naked. 

“Right,” Eddie said. 

“What I mean-”

“Right,” he said again. He had missed a button on his shirt, but his hands weren’t shaking, and he thought he looked otherwise calm, to the uninterested observer. “I’ll just - uh, if you need to get in touch with me again-”

“I’ve got your card,” said Richie. “Next time I need a ride from the airport, I’ll let you know.”

“Right,” Eddie said a third time, this time heavy and blunt. He stuffed his tie in his jacket pocket and walked out of the room, feeling a distinct sense of vertigo as he did, like he’d stood up too fast and lost his balance. No one spoke to him in the hall, or in the lobby, though there was a doorman who gave him a look that Eddie thought was a little judgmental.

What did he expect? Not this, if he was being honest with himself. Logically, guys like Richie Tozier - like _the _Richard Tozier - had one night stands not just on rare occasion, but all the time. Probably sometimes with superfans he had to gently ask to leave rather than calling security. And Eddie wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t new to this. He’d hooked up before.

But he walked back to his car feeling hollow and grimy, too much space in his chest and too many days on his skin. To top off his sudden kamikaze of a day, there was a neat new parking ticket tucked under Eddie’s windshield wiper, and the limo was caked in dirt and birdshit from a night out in the city. This was not going to be Eddie’s day no matter what, but he was good at operating on autopilot even when he was desolate or in the throes of panic. So, he climbed in the front seat and fixed the buttons on his shirt, tucked it back into his waistband, then put his tie back on. He was a little rumpled looking, and he felt queasy, but he was passable. The bags under his eyes that had been growing and purpling for most of his life (a symptom of overwork, his mother would say, don’t you need to come home for a few days? Don’t you need a little rest with your ma there to take care of you?) were smaller than he could remember. His face was smooth from a so rare night of good sleep, so that was something. Maybe Eddie ought to go pick up a pretty-boy celebrity whenever he decided he needed a good night’s rest. 

Eddie drove away, still trying to shake the cobwebs out of his mind. He had been intoxicated by the presence of Tozier, and now that he was on his own again, he was trying to ground himself again. He didn’t have any rides today, he thought. All the rides today were delegated to the rest of his staff so he could go home and sleep, though he felt so sleep drunk that he was almost certain to stay up for days.

Just a one night stand. It shouldn’t be so hard to wrap his head around, because every part of the night had pointed to one night stand. But he was so personable, he had leaned so close into Eddie from the very start, like he felt the same magnetic pull Eddie did. It wasn’t like Eddie was ugly, even by his own critical standards, but he wasn’t an underwear model either. They were from Derry, not that it mattered, but the thought stuck in Eddie’s mind like a burr. When they kissed, sparks flew, like a Nicholas Sparks book, an old black and white movie. Eddie had been so dauntless: he couldn’t have made it up, could he?

He turned the thoughts over and over in his head, driving in no particular direction with surety that he was going to end up where he wanted to be. He had a knack for directions. He wore grooves into the thoughts, eroded away their edges, till eventually there was nothing left but the certainty that he had imagined a connection where there had been none, and wallowing in self-pity was going to be nothing but a waste of time. Eddie had his business to attend to, Saturday Night Live to never watch again, and looming above all of that, he had his mother to deal with.

Eddie was fighting the same losing war he’d been fighting since he was a child, and that was the fight to not live with his mother. He had only applied to colleges far away from where they were leaving, and while a part of him was terrified to leave (the part that listened to her, the part that was screaming at him what if something went _wrong_, what if he got _hurt_, what if he was _dying_, who would be there, Eddie, who?) most of him just wanted to live without her hovering over him for the first time in his life. 

He was not let down by the experience. Being on his own was freeing, was liberating, it was terrifying and it felt like his heart was always beating a little too fast. (It wasn’t. He checked a few times a day, just in case, but his heartbeat was totally regular, as always.) 

But, after he had his business degree in hand, he had to live somewhere before he got his own business off the ground, and there were few enough places to go. He moved back in with his mom, and she doubled down on keeping him sitting still, taking his medicine, being a good boy.

Eddie moved out as soon as he had the money, but after his mom realized that she couldn’t hold him down with worries over his illnesses, his asthma, the medication he took daily, she tried to reverse the tactic. She started going to the doctor more and more often, and all the phantom ailments that had kept Eddie home from school or put him in the emergency room as a kid began to trouble her.

Perhaps it wasn’t entirely fair to Mrs. Kaspbrak. She was getting older, and it stood to reason that her health would decline. Lots of parents needed their children to take care of them. But the timing seemed just a little too perfect to Eddie, that she would need a part-time caretaker as soon as he had the money to get his own place.

So, Sonya moved in with Eddie in his first apartment. Then, when his business started to gain steam, when people were telling their friends and Eddie had to hire on Demetrios to drive a second car, he started renting out the apartment next to his. This was their hotly contested compromise. She would live next door, and Eddie would check in on her daily, and in return, he could have his own place.

It felt, pathetically, like he was still a teenager, begging to stay out at least till eleven instead of midnight. It felt like he always had to ask her permission, still, like he would get in trouble if he messed up, like she could take away the privilege to his own apartment, which was ridiculous, of course. Eddie paid for them, he was taking care of them both. But still.

Sonya was certain to be both livid and beside herself with terror when Eddie visited. He hadn’t checked in after his job the night before, obviously, and he hadn’t been in to administer any of her morning medicine either. She was capable of getting it for herself, but he went as a habit, and it was sure to be unpleasant when he actually got there. 

Eddie thought, not for the first time, that he needed to move. Also, that one day he would have to tell his mom who he was going home with. But, in that moment, he just had to get through the rest of the day. Thinking of his mom had already caused the sensation of clammy, brittle hands clamping over his neck, pulling his throat closed, and he took a deep pull on his inhaler at the stoplight.

Stupid, gay comedian. Stupid, hovering mother. Stupid, hypochondriac Eddie, giving himself a day off when he should have kept himself busy with work rather than deal with his shambling personal life. 

He didn’t bother with knocking when he got to the door adjacent his own. They lived in Brooklyn, not in a bad neighborhood, though not so ritzy as the place he’d been in last night. It was a new building, with small apartments that were all furnished with state of the art appliances and had high speed internet hookup, if you wanted that sort of thing. Eddie had a nice PC himself, and he loved the excuse to turn off his phone for a few hours. His mother, mercifully, had yet to figure out how the ‘net worked. 

Eddie let himself in and called out “Hey, Ma!” like nothing was out of the ordinary, all the while bracing himself. His throat felt tight again, but he wouldn’t take another medicinal huff of his inhaler while he was in here. She would jump on any sign of weakness. He had a lifetime of experience to prove it.

(But he loved her, of course, didn’t he? She was his mom, she loved him, so of course he loved her too of course he did of course-)

“EDDIE!”

He took as deep a breath as he could, the air stuttering down his windpipe, and followed the shrill cry into the bedroom. 

“Eddie-bear!” Sonya simpered. She was spread bonelessly on the bed, probably in the same position she’d been laying in since Eddie left her the day before. “Where have you been all night? I was so worried about you-”

“Had a finicky client,” Eddie said, trying to look reassuring as opposed to annoyed. “He wanted to go place after place. You know how famous people can be.”

“Anyone I know?” she asked, distracted for a moment. She liked to follow gossip magazines, and she thrived most when Eddie had a cold, or when he told her about what driving Jennifer Anniston to the airport was like. 

“SNL guy,” Eddie said. “Richie- Richard Tozier.” 

For a moment - so short that Eddie must have imagined it, it was quicker than the flash of a camera going off - he thought he saw a look of stony fury cross his mother’s face. But it was gone as soon as it came, and instead she just looked derisive. 

“That homo?” she asked, and the hollow in Eddie’s chest ached like rusty metal. 

“Yes, Mother,” Eddie said, his voice just barely pointedly sharp. “We live in New York. Mr. Brabb down the hall is gay too.”

Sonya sniffed, glaring at nothing in particular, possibly because her glasses script was a few years out of date.

“I don’t mind the gays,” she said. “I just don’t think they need to be… parading that part of their identity in public! Where children could see it?”

“I feel like anyone old enough to watch Saturday Night Live knows gay people exist,” Eddie said.

“It’s indecent,” Sonya said, looking frustrated. Eddie never used to argue with her, but these days he seemed to do nothing but. Eddie, for his part, could think of nothing but getting this over with.

“I’ll get you some tea and your afternoon pills, shall I?” he asked. He knew this dialogue well. She would ask him to also bring her a “spot of toast, maybe one of those sweet little snack cakes,” because they helped to digest the medicine. He would, and he would sit by her bed and listen to her talk about the dramas she had heard on the phone or on her TV programs, and she would fuss over him, and he would less enthusiastically fuss over her until he could come up with a reasonable excuse, and he would go back to his apartment and make himself dinner for one.

And, and, and.

He was almost to the door before Sonya called: “Could you get me a spot of toast too, Eddie-bear? Maybe one of those little snack cakes I love so much? It’s good to take this medicine on a full stomach, you know…”

**November 15th, 2002. 6:22 PM**

Eddie did a lot of listening to music. He was usually more a pop music sort of guy, one of the many millions who bought the soundtrack to _The Bodyguard _when it came out, a not-so-secret fan of the Backstreet Boys, even though they weren’t doing so hot lately. But then, that day he felt like rock music for some reason. He didn’t go out of his way to follow rock music, which meant that about the most hardcore CD he had on his shelf was _Warning_ by Green Day, but it felt right for the moment. He lay down on the bed with his eyes half shut, listening to the surround sound system that filled his whole apartment with loud guitars and whiny vocals. He didn’t splurge on a lot, given that he was wasting his money on two separate apartments. But Eddie liked music - wasn’t any good at playing it, but he liked to listen. He was willing to shell out for a good sound system, even if he couldn’t have anything else. And the album was good: it was angry, and more than that, it was indignant.

He wasn’t going to listen to a fucking sad song, an album full of breakup music, any of that nonsense. Not over a one night stand with some celebrity that probably slept with anyone who was willing. It was nothing to him, no big deal. It shouldn’t matter to Eddie.

He poured himself a vodka cranberry with smooth vodka from the freezer. Sort of a compromise with himself, as far as he thought. It was very tasty, got him very drunk, and cranberry juice was full of antioxidants and probiotics that sort of counteracted how bad alcohol was for the liver. Sort of.

He wasn’t going to get bent out of shape over this stupid boy. Eddie barely knew anything about him, just his name and his hometown. And the way he joked, the way he talked, the way his face lit up when Eddie said something biting, like that was the sexiest thing he could say. Eddie took a huge gulp, sneering to himself.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. There was nothing there, and people didn’t fall in love with their hookups. But there had been a connection, he knew it. He couldn’t stop thinking about Richie, but he was damned if he wasn’t going to try. 

No, he was going to think about the fruity tang of his drink, the pounding of the album against the walls. Billie Joe Armstrong sang about wanting to be a minority, down with the moral majority, and Eddie heaved a sigh. It would be business as usual tomorrow, and he could drink himself to sleep until then.

**November 16th, 2002. 9:43 AM**

Most of Eddie’s clients weren’t actually famous. A lot of them were, but anyone with money could and did hire limousines to take them all over the city. Personally, Eddie thought it was sort of stupid to willingly submit oneself to New York City traffic if it could be avoided. He didn’t mind driving in it because he was getting paid. Half the time when he went out on his own he simply took the subway. Less hassle, less honking. 

That day he was driving a very wealthy woman named Kay McCall, some fashion executive that spent the whole ride, every ride, chatting on her blocky cellphone and frowning at her reflection in the mirror. She kept the partition down, something usually only done by people who wanted to talk to their driver, but she seemed uninterested.

“Uh-huh,” she said, smacking her lips. She grimaced, then pulled out a glittery tube of lip gloss with her free hand. “Yeah, I mean, he’s a hunk, sure, but isn’t he kind of… I don’t know. He creeps me out.”

She caught sight of Eddie looking back at her in the rearview mirror and mouthed “Sorry.” She rolled her eyes, sighed, and leaned against the window. Traffic was bumper to bumper and they weren’t moving, but she wasn’t complaining to Eddie about something that wasn’t his fault, so he still didn’t mind. He was getting paid. And listening to her inane conversation was some minor distraction for the strange, uneven throbbing in his chest.

_Like he’d found someone and lost them again like someone died like clouds covering the sun why did he care why did he care why did he care?_

“He’s just- I don’t know how to explain it. No, I- _jealous_?!”

Her voice ratcheted up an octave, and Eddie bit back a smile.

“He took the glass elevator to get to the top of the field and now he thinks he owns the world! I’m not expecting you to have the good sense to date, like, women, or men who took one whole lecture class in women’s studies, but he once told me that he thinks we live in a post-sexism world based solely on the existence of the game _Tomb Raider_.”

Eddie laughed aloud, and Kay met his eyes in the mirror again, this time giving him a genuine grin. 

“I’m _not _telling you what to do,” she said. Her voice trilled, and Eddie almost missed his shot to drive a good ten feet forward as traffic jumped. “I’m just _saying_ that he’s a total-”

She was cut off by a wailing blast of car horns, and Eddie, very professionally, did not roll down the window just to stick out his middle finger. 

“Look, I’m running late and you’re being an idiot, so can I call you back? Thank you.” She hung up her phone and snapped the antenna back down into it, then let out a great groan.

“You know when your friends keep dating absolute assholes? And they get mad if you tell them that they’re dating asswipes, but they also get mad if you don’t tell them till after?”

Eddie jumped another few meters, almost to the traffic light. Pedestrians ambled in front of the car, but for all she said, she didn’t seem too fussed about being late to… whatever it was she was late for. He ought to read the schedule more closely.

“Haven’t had much experience,” he said. “I take it one of your friends is dating-”

“A chauvinist from the thirteenth century with half-decent hair and good business sense,” Kay said. “Ego the size of Nebraska. No, no, I take it back, ego the size he thinks his dick is.”

Eddie laughed again, shaking his head. 

“I know that type,” he said.

“Are you the one that dates boys with hot tempers that carry their micropenises in wheelbarrows, or the one that suffers because their friends do?”

Eddie took a ten second span of time to be utterly flabbergasted that she just assumed he was gay, and in that same time, rationalized that it probably wasn’t that complicated. It was New York, he was well-dressed, and most of the world wasn’t as oblivious as his mother. 

“Honestly, I don’t date that much myself,” Eddie said. “Not a great social life.”

“Hey, maybe you’re the smart one,” Kay said. “I gave up on dating men. I mean, I still sleep with them, of course, I’d go crazy if I didn’t have a dick every now and then. But dating? Too much effort, not enough payoff.”

“Sounds smart,” Eddie said. “But what if you get emotionally attached?”

“To a man? Not likely,” she said. She leaned back in her seat, looking peaceful for just a moment, then she sat back up, startled. “I mean, no offense or anything. You seem fine. But, like-”

“Gay men don’t count?” Eddie guessed.

“Yeah,” she said. “Gay friends are great. Go out drinking with them and you don’t get hit on or feel like you have to laugh at their unfunny jokes. Best of both worlds.”

Eddie shook his head, but kept smiling. They finally made it to the light, where he turned right immediately. If he cut up a side alley, just big enough to squeeze the limo through, they might make it to the address she’d given him only five minutes later than she requested, and that would probably be a win. Eddie knew the streets like the back of his hand, and in any case, he had a knack for getting where he wanted to go.

“But I guess I’m being sort of flippant to you,” she said. “Do you get emotionally attached to your hookups?”

“Not on purpose, that’s for sure,” Eddie said. “But good for you that you don’t.”

“The key,” she said, “Is to focus on their flaws. If you think about the red flags and little annoyances, then you realize you’ve saved yourself a lot of heartache.”

Eddie nodded, and she gave him a kind smile, like for the first time she was truly there and not just enduring the ride with him. Then she flipped her glossy hair again and went pulled a miniscule notepad out of her purse and started to write. Thus unceremoniously ended Eddie’s social interaction for most of the day. 

**November 16th, 2002. 9:16 PM**

Eddie didn’t remember a lot about where he grew up. He remembered hating Derry, remembered there being bullies, he thought, and strangely enough, he also remembered being sad to leave when they finally moved away. Eddie was halfway through his junior year of high school, so it wasn’t the ideal time to pick up and move, but his mother moved them to New York City of all places. The idea horrified her, and she hated to do it, but they had family there, and she couldn’t find work in Derry. 

In truth, Eddie was a little horrified as well, in the beginning. New York was big and germy, dirty and dangerous, and if he couldn’t stand up to a small town bully, how could he ever withstand getting jumped? (He was certain people got jumped and mugged all the time in big, scary cities like New York.)

The worry turned out to be unfounded, because Eddie soon discovered the New York was amazing. It was the easiest thing in the world to make friends with like-minded people, and even easier to avoid people you didn’t get along with, given the crowds. New York was also miles ahead of Derry in terms of political ideology, so he came out to his new friends in his senior year of high school. His mother didn’t know he was gay, but so far as he could tell, she would be the last to know.

He’d been out ever since. In college no one cared, and back in his city everyone was fine with it. He dated a little, but he never seemed quite satisfied with the men he did find. (Up until recently, of course.)

But, while he might have been unlucky in love, he was doing all right in the friendship department, he thought. Jessica, an old friend from high school, and Demetrios, who was the first person Eddie ever hired onto his company, were both fond of getting drinks with him come Sunday night, and they were yet another welcome distraction from the strange, marrow-deep ache in him that simply wouldn’t go away. 

The three of them sat down with overpriced drinks, Demetrios brushing crumbs off the table and Eddie wiping it down with a napkin from the bar soaked in hand sanitizer. Jessica slumped her whole head down on the table as soon as they were done, a sign that her day at work, like most of them, hadn’t been a good one.

“What are we drinking to tonight, Jess?” Eddie asked.

“The end of the fucking world,” Jessica said. “If a meteor strikes earth right now, they can’t possibly call me in tomorrow, right?”

“Eh, I wouldn’t be too sure about it,” Demetrios said. “Show business goes on no matter what, or however the saying goes.”

“You probably should’ve picked a boring job, like we did,” Eddie said, and she lifted one hand up through a wave of shimmering red hair to flip him off. Eddie felt, in that moment, the strangest sense of deja vu, but before he could put a finger on it, the moment had passed. 

“I am just so goddamn tired of chorus lines. I mean, I get it, it’s incredible that I’m here at all, but seriously, I spent all day today singing the same note. The same _note_, not song, because in the tenor section, we get to sing one note in the background of this song for the whole length of the song.”

“What note?” 

“Does it fucking matter?”

“Not really,” Eddie said. “Just thought it would make you feel good to ask questions. You still drinking the honey lemon tea I gave you?”

“Yes, Doctor Kaspbrak, your homeopathic tea works like a charm. What about you too? Any fun rides?”

“Yeah, a very strange man who was either quite high or a little insane and might have been Tommy Wiseau tipped me five hundred dollars yesterday,” Demetrios said. “So I’m doing great.”

“And you’re buying tonight,” Eddie said, knowing his expression had to be bitter. “I got a parking ticket for stopping in the wrong place at Richard Tozier’s apartment.”

“Oh?” Jessica said. She lifted her head and leaned into Eddie, her eyebrows arched high in her forehead. She loved gossip, and though it wasn’t exactly keeping Eddie away from the subject he wanted to avoid, he supposed this still qualified as a distraction. And it wasn’t really moping if you did it with your friends, so he told himself.

“And what, may I ask, were you doing in Richard Tozier’s apartment for so long?” Demetrios asked.

“Starfucker,” Jessica said before Eddie could reply, looking delighted. “Oh, Ed, that is so cool, what was he like?”

“Like a person,” Eddie said, and rolled his eyes. “Kind of a dick in the morning, actually. I offered to give him my number and he said he had my card if he ever wanted to call us about a ride again.”

Eddie was generally good at picking friends (he had discovered that whoever his mom didn’t like was often times the best option) and his friends knew him well. Their faces almost instantly became sympathetic, and Jessica draped an arm over his shoulder. 

“What a creep,” she said. “Guess all men are the same, gay or straight. No offense, guys.”

“Hey, I’m on the ‘all men suck’ hate train tonight too,” Eddie said. “Sorry, Dimi.”

“It’s okay,” said Demetrios. “We can hate men. I’m great at self-loathing, you too, right Ed?”

And Eddie was grinning again, just like that, feeling at least a little bit better. Demetrios reminded Eddie of someone he’d forgotten long ago - his mannerisms were comforting and familiar when he spoke with quiet, wry humor, the excessive sarcasm, his fastidious nature. He reminded Eddie of-

He was a good friend, as was Jessica, and if Eddie did still feel a harsh and solid ache in his chest, he could ignore it. For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah okay thanks to everyone who's commented and left kudos on this so far!!! i have a whole big plot all planned out, and I'm so sorry it took so long to get the second chapter up, but rest assured, this fic is going to be up and reddie in no time


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie is trying to move on with his life, but he has always had a hard time running from his past. Now, the man of his dreams is showing up everywhere, and all Eddie can do is try to move past him anyway.

**December 1st, 2002, 10:06 PM**

Eddie had spent two weeks trying to think about anything but Richard fucking Tozier. It shouldn’t have been difficult because he didn’t have an excessive amount of free time. But somehow thoughts and memories of him filled up all the cracks in his day, all the seconds when his mind wasn’t occupied, which was shockingly often. Driving in New York should have been difficult, it should have been something he had to focus on, and yet. Yet.

Every time he was driving a particularly quiet client, or his mother fell asleep while he was sitting next to her bed and looking off into the distance, every time the announcer on TV reminded the audience that Saturday Night Live came back on at nine, Eddie remembered bits and flashes and felt that sudden, almost jerking pain in his chest. It was as though someone had stuck a meat hook under his ribs and yanked. At some point, he stopped being sad and started being annoyed. 

He had hooked up before! It was weird, but it wasn’t like this! He was exhausted by the protests of his heart, and in spite of the hundreds of bottles of pills, vitamins, and supplements in his cabinet, not one of them could do anything to make him stop _pining_. He was doing everything reasonably possible to avoid thoughts of the man (easier than expected, given that he was at least a minor celebrity) but everything reminded him or Richie. The watch a client was wearing and the way the glitter of dim, orange lights in a house against the window panes. It was pathetic and he had no idea how to stop it. He had no idea how to stop hearing Richie’s breathy voice against his ear just before he fell asleep, nor did he know how to prevent himself from waking up every morning and automatically stretching out to the far side of his bed (an optimistically purchased king size, far too big for him) and feeling the swooping sink in his gut when he found it empty. 

While Eddie was truly loathing the idea of bemoaning his state to someone else, he wasn’t sure what to do. He was obsessed with the thought of Richie. (Richard, he tried to correct himself in his head, but somehow when he thought of him he could only think of him as Richie, could only think of him in terms of summer sunshine though the first snows had started falling in earnest outside.) 

It came to be that, when he finally met up with Jessica and Demetrios again, it was him instead of her that slumped facedown on the empty table, ignoring the protests of his mother ringing in the back of his head about slouching, about dirty public tables, about anything at all. Jessica made a distressed noise at the sight of him, possibly because he was stealing her move. Eddie, for his part, was too miserable and embarrassed to care.

“Rough day?” Demetrios asked haltingly, and Eddie groaned into the overpriced fabric of his suit.

“You could say that,” he said, voice muffled by clothing.

“Um,” Jessica said. “This is weird. Really weird. I had an awful day, but you appear to be putting your face on the table, so I assume you watched the apocalypse begin at work?”

“No,” Demetrios said. “Not a bad day. I bet you the next round of drinks he’s bottling something in for a while.”

“Don’t take it,” Eddie said. “You can’t afford to be wrong.”

“Rude, but true,” Jessica said. “So… what’s up?”

Eddie sat up all the way and pulled a face. He still didn’t want to talk about it. Talking about it made it real and put his pathetic, clingy nature out into the world for everyone to see, but he was out of ideas to personally take care of his issues, so maybe someone else had a bright plan.

“I’m hung up on someone and I can’t get over it,” he said. Jessica made to say something, excitement shining in her eyes, but Demetrios held up a hand to stop her before she did.

“Someone you already know?” he asked. “An ex?”

“Of sorts,” Eddie said. He could feel the warmth of blood in his cheeks, a stupid unrequited blush for a stupid, unrequited crush. It reminded him of being a kid and all his aunts, squat old maids who had no idea how to interact with children, pinching his cheeks and calling him “Cute, cute, cute!” Then, just for a flash, he felt a jolt of a memory - someone else pinching his cheek, calling him cute, a sensation of warmth rather than disgust. The moment disappeared almost at once, and he shook his head to rid himself of it, like a dog shaking water from its fur.

“It was a one night stand,” he said, clearly embarrassed. “People hook up all the time and we spent, like, twelve hours together, but I can’t stop thinking about him.”

“Sorry,” Jessica said, eyes big. “The ‘him’ in question being-”

“Richi- Richard Tozier,” Eddie said. Jessica gave him a sympathetic smile.

“If it’s any consolation, you and every other gay boy in the country,” she said. 

“Believe it or not, that doesn’t make me feel any better,” Eddie said. “Like, at all. I’m not asking how to get over a celebrity crush, I’m only bringing it up at all because I’m hoping one of you has an idea of how to forget about a hookup.”

“Hey, everyone’s got the one who got away,” Jessica said. “Maybe you just have to steer into the skid, as it were. Let yourself eat tubs of ice cream and wallow, and after a few more weeks, I’ll introduce you to my coworker who-”

“I don’t wanna get hooked up with some dude in your chorus line,” Eddie said. “No offense.”

“I don’t suppose you can try calling him again for closure or whatever,” Demetrios said.

“No,” Eddie said, trying to keep the worst of the bitterness out of his mouth. The alcohol seemed to draw the tone out, though, like poison leaching from a wound. “But of course, if he ever wants to get in touch with me, he _has my card_.”

“What a bastard,” Jessica said. “I’ll stop watching SNL for you, if you want. I mean, unless the musical guest is really good. Or the host. Or, I mean-”

“I think you may just have to live with it,” Demetrios said. And if that was a far cry from the news Eddie wanted to hear, well. What else could he do?

**Saturday, December 14th, 2:06 PM**

One of the worst things about living in New York was the Christmas season, Eddie thought. Even more tourists than usual packed themselves into subway cars without any idea of how the subway worked, everyone on the streets jostled Eddie from side to side with their enormous bags from Macy’s, and in spite of living there for nearly ten years, Eddie had only ever caught glimpses of the Rockefeller Christmas tree. 

“We ought to visit your aunt Jenny this year,” Sonya declared loudly the moment Eddie walked in the door, grocery bags perched precariously in his arms. “Such a lonely woman, I doubt she’ll be in the mood for anything cheery this year, but it’s our Christian duty, you know. Lord knows I’d be in a poor mood if I didn’t have you, Eddie-bear.”

Eddie gave her a cheerless smile and kept unpacking groceries. He still loathed his aunts, but he had expected little else of the Christmas season. 

“We ought to get her something nice - not over the top, of course, but she loves those little Waterford crystal ornaments, and they’d look a little less tacky than everything else in her house, you know.”

“We” as Eddie knew well, meant “Eddie,” and that wasn’t a particularly cheap Christmas present, but he knew he’d be getting it anyway. He didn’t have the strength to argue with his mom, not that day, not any day, and he found that all his family experiences were much more painless when he nodded and smiled and followed her suggestions.

“But you know, sweetie,” she said, still conversational. “Amanda, that’s the nurse that comes in sometimes to check on her, I think she’s about your age, maybe a year or two older. And since she’s a nurse, she’ll know all about how to take care of you if you need help or have a really bad asthma attack. I hear she’s very pretty, if just a little bit plump, and I think it would be good if you two got to know each other.”

Eddie, for his part, tried not to look outwardly horrified. 

“Mm,” he said noncommittally. “Right. I should go out and look for a present, then-”

“You’re leaving already?” she asked, her eyes bugging. Eddie gave her a thin smile, trying not to panic, trying not to think.

“Yeah, well, only so much time,” he said. “And I ought to… ought to…”

“Eddie, wait!” she cried, and, even knowing that he would have hell to pay for it later, he ran out the door, his throat pinhole tight by the time he made it out into the hallway. Once he had walked past the door to his own apartment, he had already forgotten what she had said he needed to buy his aunt for Christmas. Something about crystal, maybe? Better to tell her the store was sold out and have her pick out something else. 

Eddie didn’t have another job until seven that night, and while it took awhile to get to LaGuardia, he didn’t find the idea of spending the whole afternoon in an airport much more appealing than spending time sitting, clamlike, next to his mother. In fact, very little sounded appealing to him, but he walked out into the snowy streets anyway. 

Eddie liked to walk, sometimes, no direction in mind, but with the vague hopes of getting just lost enough that he would have to stretch his mental muscles and figure out his way back home. When he was in college he would hop on a late night train that, like the old song said, took him _anywhere_. He would wind up on the other side of town, in a different borough, down in Newark, once he accidentally found himself past Boston and all the way out to Salem. Getting lost - never too lost, but just lost enough - gave him a secret pleasure, a thrill not unlike he imagined adrenaline junkies got skydiving. It felt dangerous yet contained in a way he couldn’t explain. It wasn’t all that dangerous, nor yet was it quite as safe as he was convinced in his heart. Still he wandered, for in the process of finding his way home, he knew he would be able to clear his anxious thoughts from his head like so many cobwebs, if only for a moment. And Eddie so longed for a head clear of anxiety, a head without the constant litany of his mother’s voice saying _dangerous, dangerous, dangerous._

The air coming off the river was frigid, chilling Eddie through and through in spite of the frankly ridiculous amount of layers he was wearing. It was colder where he’d grown up, sure, Maine was freezing, colder than parts of Canada, but he felt the cold more every year too. Kids were invincible, he thought to himself.

He followed the bank of the East River up and up, wandering less than he was used to with the thought in mind that he did need to get back tonight, he had a client, couldn’t be known for flaking out on jobs. He was just about to turn back (after getting a sizeable coffee somewhere overpriced in the hopes of warming up a little) when he caught sight of an all too familiar silhouette hunched against the cold, with only his head tilted up to face the stormy sky.

_Richie_.

Eddie’s heart stuttered in his chest. The cold gray light was pallid through the clouds, but Richie’s face was clear, just barely obstructed by his glasses. He looked thoughtful, almost mournful as he stood there, hands in his pockets, and Eddie was overwhelmed by the need to go over, to see him again, hear his voice again, touch his skin and remember what it felt like because it felt like all the memories of their night were slipping away from him. He craved him, not like a one-night stand or an old crush, but like a lost loved one.

Eddie took a step towards him and his shoe crunched against the ground, the sound of crushed glass and fresh snow gritting under his foot. It was soft, especially amidst the endless honking and whirring background noise of the city, but it was enough to jostle Eddie out of his own head.

What was he doing?

Eddie stepped back just as quickly, turning to face the river. He let out a big huff of air, a cloud of steam surrounding his face for a moment. No, if he went up to Richie and begged him to talk, to wait, to listen, to come back, just for one night more, then Eddie would seem crazy. He would be the weird stalker to some celebrity. “Starfucker,” Jessica had called him, and Eddie didn’t want to be that.

He turned, walking back the way he had come, when he tripped spectacularly over a broken bottle in the gutter and went sprawling out across the sidewalk. His elbow struck the concrete before he face-planted and sent a flare of pain up his arm, but he was soon standing, his cheeks heated from blushing. 

“Hey!” a voice called from behind him.

Eddie could not believe his luck.

“Hey!” Richie called again, closer this time, while Eddie was still brushing the snow and street grime off his coat. “Hey, man, are you all right?”

“Fine,” Eddie said with a sigh. He turned to face Richie and put his smile back on - the first one he had given Richie, the customer-service smile, the brave-face-for-strangers smile. Richie looked like he’d been given an electric shock, his mouth slightly agape, but Eddie just rolled his shoulders. “I was just headed back home. Icy out here, though. You ought to watch your step.”

“Eddie,” Richie said. “Hey, listen, I-”

“I really do need to get going,” Eddie said. “I’ve got a ride tonight, and I think I might need to bandage up my arm before that. But thanks for, uh, the thought.”

“Eddie, wait,” Richie said. He held out a hand halfway between them but didn’t bridge the distance to actually touch him. “I’ve- I’ve been thinking of you, actually, and I wanted to say- well, I know it was kind of- kind of sudden when I last saw you-”

“It’s really not a big deal,” Eddie said, still red-cheeked, still embarrassed. He didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to be pitied by Richie Tozier. “Look, I’m not just- I really _do_ have to go.”

“Oh,” Richie said. “Oh, okay. Right.”  
His face, usually so expressive, was impassive. _Kiss him!_ cried the rebellious, unruly part of his brain, the part that sometimes reared its head as the exact counterweight to his mother’s. _Kiss him now and remember the feeling of his lips on your lips and damn the consequences!_

“Can I call you?” Richie asked. Eddie bit back a laugh, because it would have been too mean and too bitter both to laugh.

“Course you can,” Eddie said. “You’ve got my card, right?”

With that, he turned and walked away, having gotten the last word and feeling desperately hollow about it.

**December 25th, 2002, 5:58 PM**

Eddie couldn’t stop seeing Richie after the day they bumped into each other. Like an emotional hangnail, Richie flared up against Eddie at every turn. Sometimes it was obvious, like before. Here a tall man in a leather jacket with the same frame of glasses, there the same white knuckled grip on a table. Others should have been obvious, like the incessant shots of Richie wiggling his eyebrows in commercials and TV spots, or the enormous billboard of the SNL cast in Santa hats that loomed over the Jersey entrance to the Holland tunnel. But, the obsessive memories and celebrity status aside, Eddie kept seeing Richie. 

Suddenly they got their morning coffee at the same time at the same cafe, standing a few spaces away from each other in line and pointedly not making eye contact. They ended up waiting on the same street corner for the better part of two minutes while a bakery truck unloaded. He picked Tina Fey up from the studio where she continued her conversation with Richie while Eddie waited, either oblivious or unconcerned with the unhappy looks they threw each other. And on, and on, and on.

It was uncanny the way the universe threw them together, and more than that, it was _unfair._

There were eight million people in the city! Eddie thought. Eight million! The odds of them running into each other this often were beyond improbable, they were astronomically unlikely. Why else would people go around having one-night stands?! Eight million people! 

“Like in Casablanca,” Jessica had said sagely. “You know, ‘of all the gin joints…’”

“Yeah, I know,” Eddie said. “But how am I supposed to move on like this when he’s being all-” he raised an arm and waved it “-around me?”

“All… what?” Demetrios asked. 

“Gay and pretty,” Jessia had said, and Eddie had buried his face in his arms again.

What he ought to do was try again. Explain that he wanted to take him out on a real date, if possible. At the very least, tell the man that his bedside manners were atrocious and see if that made Eddie feel any better at all. But he could bring himself to do none of those things, and instead he stared, he pined, and he moped.

For the first time in forever, Christmas with the family seemed more like a blessing than a chore. Aunt Jenny lived in Brooklyn, but it seemed to be Manhattan where Eddie was cursed to run into Richie again and again and again. He sat in the back of the room, having scooted his chair back just a little hit behind the Christmas tree. This was ideal, because his mother was ranting about something they had seen on TV earlier that day, and so long as he was just out of her line of sight, she wouldn’t address him directly for a while.

Of course, he wanted deeply to tune out the racist rant his mom was giving about all the terrorists that still had the audacity to stay in the city, so it wasn’t perfect, but it was better than her asking his opinion and expecting him to agree with her.

“What I need to do is speak to the mayor of this city,” his mother said, Aunt Jenny nodding weakly to appease her. “I could tell him what’s what!”

Eddie’s only wish was that he could somehow have snuck a book behind the Christmas tree so he would have something to focus on other than the drone of his mother’s voice and the nervous whine of his aunt. But that was mean, he realized to himself, and unfair. His mom had some bad opinions, sure, but she was his mom. She wasn’t all that educated, not compared to him, but it wasn’t like she called slurs at the Kahn family downstairs. She just worried a lot, that was all. He told himself that was all.

Without much else to do, Eddie studied the ornaments hanging on the tree. A crystal ornament, Waterford, glittered against the string of rainbow lights. It was quite pretty, though Eddie didn’t think it was worth the cost for a little bit of glitter. Just sitting there, though, watching the soft sparkle of the Christmas lights, hearing the noise of the fake fire crackling in the corner, it was pleasant. Aunt Jenny had even found a real Christmas tree, a thick-trunked spruce that made the whole of her apartment smell fresh and woody and exactly like Christmastime ought. The heavy, forest smell made Eddie think of Maine, something he rarely did anymore. He used to play in the woods, he thought, surrounded by the trees and their heavy, wintry scent. A memory tugged at him, wrapping around his mind in thin tendrils. Something about the trees, about lying under so many evergreens and feeling something warm in his palm - someone else’s hand, he was holding someone’s hand, staring up into the boughs of the trees. He turned to look at the person attached to the hand, and-

“Eddie!” his mother called. Her voice was high and sharp as the tines of a fork being driven into his brain, and the memory slid through his fingers like grains of sand. “Eddie, what are you doooing back there?!”

“Nothing,” he said quickly, strangely guilty. It wasn’t like she had caught him masturbating, but he felt similarly embarrassed, like she’d seen him doing something private. “Drifting off, I guess. I’m pretty fatigued.”

It was a shot in the dark. There was a 50/50 chance if this working out in his favor, he figured. The one half was her crooning over him, her poor little Eddie-bear, working such long hours for her, wasn’t he just such a good son? The other side of the coin was her shouting at him for falling asleep hunched over in a chair. In a childish gesture that jumped to the forefront of Eddie’s mind, he crossed his fingers at his side for luck. 

Perhaps it was the crossed fingers that worked, because luck was on Eddie’s side. 

“Oh my _goodness_, look at the time!” Sonya gasped. “Jenny, we simply can’t impose on you any longer.”

“No imposition,” Aunt Jenny said, but Eddie thought he saw a flash of gratitude on her wan face. “Shall I have Amanda walk you out to the car?”

“That would be _lovely_,” his mom said, dropping a heavy and over-emphasized wink at Eddie. “Mandy, dear, why don’t you help Eddie take some of the leftovers out to the car?”

The miserable-looking, underpaid nurse who had dropped by some two hours ago to check in on Jenny did not look all too thrilled by Mrs. Kaspbrak’s suggestion. Eddie couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes, embarrassed by her as he was. He just made his way from living room to kitchen, scooped up the already Tupperware-d remains of Christmas dinner, and walked from the kitchen to the hall for the floor, giving Amanda a nod of gratitude as she held the door for him. Halls inside houses, he thought, was another small thing he missed about Maine. Not that there was much good about the place, so far as he could remember, but bigger houses were easier for his family to navigate, as a general rule.

“Sorry about her,” Eddie said at last, when they were both in the elevator. “She’s just…” he trailed off. He didn’t know what she was just. Didn’t know how to explain it. Amanda shrugged. 

“I don’t blame you,” she said. “I don’t even mind that, I just need to be getting home.”

“We’re nearly free, both of us,” Eddie promised. He loaded up the car, and his luck continued to hold. His mother had come down in the interim, perhaps eager to get back in time to watch one of her shows. She bid Amanda a very warm goodbye, and from the passenger seat, told Eddie that she was a _very _nice young lady, didn’t he think so? With a good job, but not one that would be hard to give up once Eddie’s business got just a little bigger, big enough to support a whole family in an expensive city without any strain.

“Very nice,” Eddie parroted back. “But I’m not sure… I mean, we didn’t have much in the way of chemistry.”

“Chemistry,” said his mother, making a sour face as though the word itself tasted foul. “What about chemistry? It’s a good match, and that’s something we were grateful for, back in the day.”

“Course,” Eddie agreed, and he turned on the radio. 

“You’ll want to take a Tums later,” his mom said without prompting, her voice slightly louder so that she could speak over the Christmas carol that was playing. “God bless your aunt, her food always gives wicked heartburn. And you know how sensitive your digestion is. I already hate that you have to go back to work so soon, I’d hate to think you did it with a tummy ache.”

It was amazing, Eddie thought to himself, how she could make him so embarrassed even when no one else could hear them.

“You will have one, won’t you?” she asked. She shook a bottle in his face, and he almost jerked the wheel of the car, but his hands remained steady.

“Yes, Mom,” he said. As soon as they hit the stop light, he held out his hand for her to shake two Tums onto, and he chewed them up, feeling the fruit-and-chalk taste filled his whole mouth. His aspirator jutted into the side of his leg, a comforting reminder that it was there when he needed it, which could be soon. His throat felt tight.

They made it back to their building in record time, for Christmas day, at any rate, and even though it was early in the evening, Eddie feigned a need to get to sleep to escape his mother’s grasp. He did not go to sleep, though. After his front door had clicked shut, Eddie did something dangerous, something silly and romantic and reckless, something his mother would hate, all while the antacids churned in his almost empty stomach.

He moved to the window and opened it, then climbed out onto the fire escape. It did not pass her window, and she wouldn’t knock, not when she was so well fed and satisfied that her tirade of the day had been heard, she would go right to sleep. 

(Why did it matter if she was asleep or not? He wasn’t a child, he didn’t live with her, didn’t have to sneak out, didn’t have to anything)

He half-jogged up the steps, ignoring the protesting groan of metal under his feet as he did so. Once he had walked as far as he could, he heaved himself over the railing and climbed an even older, even more precarious ladder the rest of the way up onto the roof. Many roofs in New York were resident accessible. This wasn’t one of them officially, but there was plenty of space to walk anyway, if you knew how to get up there, and Eddie did.

He walked to the very edge of the roof, leaned over the side, and stared out at the nighttime skyline of the city. Just like the tree before, the whole city glittered in the late night, sparkles of television through windows and refracted beams of streetlamps on the broken glass below. He stood up as high as he dared and felt tall and strong in a way he never did around his family, and he allowed himself to wonder, just for a moment, if wherever Richie Tozier was, he could see this gorgeous night too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! I hope this doesn't read too much like a filler chapter - I swear it's important set-up for later, and the next chapter, which'll be way more satisfying, is coming soon. Also, i know it got a little soppy at the end but what is IT fanfic for if not to get fluffy as hell?


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie goes to a New Years Eve party and runs into the same boy once again.

_December 31st, 2002. 11:21 PM_

Eddie wasn’t exactly what you would call a party person. He didn’t really like parties in college, or after. He didn’t like big crowds, and the alcohol table was always pretty horrific in terms of hygiene. Parties were all grinding and spit-swapping and loud music with heavy beats that made Eddie’s chronic headaches flare up. 

He _especially_ hated New Years Eve parties in New York City, of all places. The ball drop could be watched anywhere in the whole world, but house parties set up cover charges because they sort of kind of had an adjacent view of the infamous structure if you squinted at 10:00 PM precisely. No thanks, but Eddie could just as easily get drunk and watch NSYNC sing in the snow from the comfort of his own home.

The only reason he was going out this year was Jessica, who begged and whined and cajoled him until he agreed to go out with her on New Year’s Eve, largely just to shut her up.

“Eds,” she said, and he felt a strange, odd skip in his chest at the nickname. “We are at our physical peak and I have the in at the celebrity hotspot of the night, for New Year’s Eve, in New York! Why on earth wouldn’t you want to come?”

“Because it’s a celebrity hotspot, on New Year’s Eve, in New York!” he had shot back. “Why go out when we could do anything else?”

“Because,” Jessica said, losing the perky affect almost immediately. “I desperately need to schmooze and I want you to come with and make sure no sleazy producer roofies me. Can you do that?”

Eddie had wrinkled up his nose and complained, but ultimately he agreed to go with her, so he supposed she had won that. 

So, that was how Eddie ended up at the official Saturday Night Live cast party on New Year’s Eve, in someone’s apartment so ritzy that yes, they could see the whole descent of the ball drop. Eddie had not known that celebrity hotspot meant SNL, and he was, for obvious reasons, not entirely thrilled, but Jessica had given him a shrug and guilty look and said “Surprise?” like it was fine, no big deal, lots of people have bad one night stands, Eddie, get over it.

Eddie was having a rough night, in short. 

But Jessica was right. There were a ton of people at the party, there was a huge open bar with very expensive alcohol that looked fantastic, a ton of cute boys who were probably gay because, being realistic, it was an acting party in New York. It was highly unlikely that Eddie was going to run into-

“Tina! Hey, yeah, sorry I’m late, I had to pick up the shit at my place. How you doing?”

Ah, and there was Richie Tozier’s unmistakable voice. Eddie couldn’t say if he knew it better from hearing it on TV or hearing it in his ear, breathy and low in reality, but he knew it like he knew his own. It was innate, like they’d been together for years, rather than had one night. One forgettable night, Eddie told himself, without really believing it. 

Eddie, completely inconspicuously, covered his face with his hand and walked right back to the drinks table, where the bartender poured himself a cocktail he called a “sparkler” which appeared to just be champagne and Grey Goose. Eddie drank three in quick succession, then plastered a fake smile on his face and loudly greeted the man next to him.

“Hi!” he said, shouting over the music, even though it wasn’t really necessary to shout. “I’m Edd-ward.”

“Hi,” the man said. He was cute, Eddie realized, and he reminded him of someone he couldn’t put a name on in his mind. Tall and black with downy looking hair and huge hands, Eddie had never seen him on television, but he would have liked to.

The man laughed.

“I’d have liked to see you on TV too,” the man said, and Eddie was delighted to realize that he was already too drunk to feel embarrassed that he had said that out loud.

“I’m Michael,” the man said, and Eddie felt a pang in his hard. Mike. He’d known a Mike, somewhere, but he just couldn’t quite remember…

“So, this is one of those awkward grown-up parties where you can’t really ask someone to dance, but you don’t really know anyone well enough to talk,” Michael said. Not his Mike, Eddie decided, even though he wasn’t sure who his Mike was or why this made him so sad. 

“What are you doing here, then?” Eddie asked.

“I am a gaffer with a sparkling personality,” Michael said. “What about you?”

“My best friend is an up and coming actor,” Eddie said. He didn’t mean to sound pained as he said it, but he did. Michael laughed at him, and he had a nice laugh, even if it didn’t sound like Richie’s. 

Eddie made a face out where Michael and everyone could see him because God damn, but he was trying not to think about Richie, even if he could hear his braying laugh not ten feet away.

“They any good?” Michael asked gamely. 

“She’s great,” Eddie said. “Brilliant, and I think she’s gonna make it one day. But in the meantime, she schmoozes, and I get dragged along.”

“This didn’t really look like your scene,” Michael admitted. “What do you do?”

“I’m a driver,” Eddie said, then puffed out his chest, because it couldn’t hurt to take a little bit of pride in himself in front of the cute boy. And Michael was very, very cute. Jessica said that the best way to get over a hangup was to sleep with someone else, so maybe that was what he had to do. “I actually own a company of private cars. Limos mostly, to cater to these kinds of people.”

“‘These kinds,’” Michael repeated with a snort. “Well, guess I’m lucky that you’re not some kind of starfucker, huh?” He blushed almost immediately after he spoke. “Sorry, that was, ah, crude.”

“It’s fine,” said Eddie, who made a point of not looking at Richie. “Hard to tell at these kinds of places.”

“And everyone’s gotta have a hobby, huh?” Michael laughed. He still looked embarrassed as he said “Really, I’m sorry. I’m just friends with a lot of the cast, and I get protective.”

“I think it’s sweet,” Eddie said. “And I bet you’ve also run into too many people who were into you because of your friends.”

“Once or twice,” Michael agreed. “Here, I’ll make it up to you: what are you having?”

“No idea,” Eddie said, as he had forgotten the name already. “I think it’s vodka cut with champagne?”

“I’ll grab us some more,” Michael said, and then he let his hand brush against Eddie’s shoulder, soft but deliberate, and Eddie felt his nerve endings light up like sparklers. “Wait for me.”

Eddie could do that, he thought dazedly, and he leaned against the table, surveying the crowd. The apartment was full to bursting, but everything was somehow still all white and chrome and immaculately clean in the way that only the very richest people could keep their places in New York City. Maybe living large wasn’t such a bad idea, and Eddie resigned himself to thanking Jessica later, especially if things worked out with this Michael fellow.

_Not Mike_, said a nearly heartbroken voice deep inside him, and Eddie shoved the voice down. He didn’t even _know _any Mikes, and if he was pining over someone from grade school, it was high time to get over that. He apparently only remembered them when he was drunk.

Richie approached the drinks table then, brushing elbows with Michael but apparently not seeing Eddie a mere ten feet away. Eddie told himself quite firmly that it was a good thing, and as he stared at the back of Richie’s head with near unbearable amounts of intensity, he tried not to wish that Richie would turn around and notice him.

Then, a moment later, he tried not to be delighted when Richie did turn around and his eyes went wide as they zeroed in on Eddie. Something pink and bubbly went slack in his hand and as he stared in shock, he managed to pour some of his drink onto the pristine white carpet. 

Eddie couldn’t help it. He snorted, covering his own mouth as he looked at Richie, slack-jawed in surprise. He’d never seen someone actually let the muscles in their jaw droop and look so comically shocked. Eddie was just drunk enough to give Richie a little wave and to wink as Michael came back.

“Two sparklers!” Michael announced. “I think it’d be cooler if they lit them on fire, but I guess that would burn off the alcohol, so probably not the point.”

“Thanks,” Eddie said, and he stepped a little closer than was entirely friendly. Michael gave him an encouraging smile, as if to tell Eddie to go for it.

So, Eddie went for it. He held his glass down by his waist and pressed his lips to Michael’s. Michael tasted like screwdrivers, sharp and sweet at the same time, and Eddie sucked in a breath while he kissed him. From across the room, he could hear the sound of a small gasp and a glass tumbling to the carpeted floor.

“Whoa,” Michael said when they parted, his eyes glimmering with mirth. “Guess that answers my next question.”

“Do you wanna step outside?” Eddie asked, and he tried to look alluring. In reality, he felt a little sick under the thin blanket of alcoholic confidence - what about HPV? What about herpes? What about the common cold or the bird flu? It was flu season, after all, and this idiot had just kissed a stranger to make another stranger jealous. What was Eddie thinking? But he swallowed down his fears as best he could and ignored the nausea they induced in his stomach. He had come up with this stupid plan and he intended to see this stupid plan through.

The two of them walked out onto the balcony and Eddie refused to let himself turn around and look to see if Richie was still watching him. He could feel the heat of eyes on his back, and even if he imagined it, that was enough for Eddie. He felt a little guilty for using this guy, but he promised himself that he wasn’t going to be as rude at the end of their one night stand as Richie had been, and that was a balm on his conscience. 

Outside, in the chill winter air, the riotous noise of Times Square not far off, they talked. Michael had big dreams about becoming a writer, Eddie was embarrassed to admit that his dreams were, so far as he could tell, already in the process of coming true. Michael talked about his family in Pennsylvania, and Eddie did not talk about his mother who lived next door to him. It turned out that nearly all they had in common was living in New York and being friends with actors, but he seemed nice enough, and neither one of them was exactly pushing for a brunch date.

When Michael excused himself to go inside again - to get more drinks, to go to the bathroom, to greet the host, Eddie couldn’t remember - Eddie had a moment to savor the beautiful night full of life and noise and other people, making him feel less lonely and like he was a part of a beautiful something. Then the moment shattered as the door slid open with a loud and angry hiss, and familiar footfalls walked out onto the balcony.

“What the hell is this about?” Richie asked. Eddie spun round, already angry.

“What makes you think this-” Eddie gestured around himself vaguely “- is about you?”

Of course, it was, but it took some nerve and conceit for Richie to just assume so. 

“What are you even doing here?” Richie demanded, his voice coming out as more of a whine than a question.

“I was invited,” Eddie said, which he thought was stretching the truth a little, but then, Jessica had been invited by someone, and Eddie was her plus one, so he had every right to be there. Plus- “And not that it matters, but I had no idea you’d be here. Can I not just want to go out for the night?”

“Well, if we’re being candid, I’d prefer you not be here,” Richie said. Eddie put one hand out in front of him, gesticulating in annoyance. 

“Listen, I am just here to get drunk and ring in the new year with my friend. The fact that you are here has absolutely nothing to do with-”

Eddie was cut off, then, by the sound of bells and pots and pans clanging and thousands, if not millions of people screaming as one, _Happy New Year!_ Fireworks erupted over the city, the night sky lighting up in a brilliant rainbow burst of colors. Eddie had a sudden flash of a sad thought - he’d rather hoped to kiss Michael at midnight - but then his mouth was caught by Richie’s.

And oh, but kissing Richie was _this_. It was all the fireworks in the city moving inside his chest and lighting him up from his heart to the tips of his fingers. There was no cold air, no unwieldy, drunken screams, no sharp alcohol on his tongue, just fireworks and bells and cheering and Richie, Richie, Richie.

Eddie broke away before the cheering had stopped, but his voice and whatever he had been saying left him. He stared up at Richie’s eyes, dark and liquid in the thin light of night.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” Richie asked, and Eddie thought _wait _but said “Yes.”

_January 1st, 2003. 10:34 AM_

When Eddie woke up, he was very, very hungover, and his throat felt like it had been coated in cotton. He took a moment to take stock of where he was, trying to recall the unfamiliar sheets and remember the name of the guy next to him before he had to put on the act of waking up and speak to him.

Then, with a rush of blood to his head and his cheeks, Eddie realized that he _did _recognize this apartment. He recognized the bougie art on the walls and the high thread count sheets and the minibar set up in the bedroom. Which meant that Eddie had gone home with the same jackass twice.

“Fuck me,” Eddie groaned aloud, letting his eyes slam shut.

“Isn’t that my line?” said the deep voice next to him.

Eddie groaned again and rolled over, clutching a pillow over his ears. 

“No, no, how did this happen?” he asked aloud. He was being incredibly, insufferably rude, and he didn’t give a damn.

“I’m hurt, Eds,” Richie Tozier said, still audible even through the muffling of the pillow. And Eddie wanted to cry, wanted to scream, wanted to be home and in a shower, because his dumb ass had just slept with Richie Tozier again.

Eddie sat up, keeping the blanket very firmly wrapped around his waist. Richie made an undignified noise as Eddie pulled the blanket up with him as he got to his feet, and said “Wait- hey-!” which Eddie soundly ignored. He was looking around the room, but he couldn’t see his clothes anywhere - he hadn’t stripped in the hallway, had he?

“Jesus, you’re in a hurry,” Richie said. Eddie glanced over his shoulder and saw Richie still splayed out, languid and bored on the bed, a pillow over his dick.

“You’re… modest,” Eddie said. He wasn’t usually this flustered, nor was he usually so slow with his words, but the sight of Richie on the bed was distracting, to say the least.

“We’ve had sex,” Richie said. “Like, twice now. I think we’re a little past modesty.”

“I’m not,” said Eddie, pointedly hiking up the blanket a little higher. And, because the room was spotlessly bare, he added in desperation: “Where are my clothes?”

“You don’t remember where your clothes are?” Richie asked. A smile was spreading across his face, a shit eating grin that made Eddie feel a little more flustered and a lot more mad.

“Yes,” Eddie spat. “I don’t remember much of last night, other than the fact that I made a mistake.”

It wasn’t entirely true, though. The longer he was awake, the more of the previous evening came back to him. He remembered kissing passionately in the entryway, of ducking his head when he was still at the party to make sure that Michael didn’t see them leave, or, worse, Jessica. He remembered thinking he would regret this and not caring, not caring as long as Richie kept touching him.

God, he was such a stupid, slutty drunk. He was never drinking again, he told himself, without really meaning it.

“Living room,” Richie said. Eddie huffed and walked out of the room, the blanket trailing ridiculously behind him, an absurdly long train. What did Richie need a king bed for anyway, he wondered. 

There, in the living room, next to the sofa, were two piles of clothes. Eddie dimly remembered this too, pulling Richie’s shirt off his shoulders and wanting to see more skin, more. He flushed just thinking about it, and grabbed his pants, hopping back into them first. He heard footsteps behind him and hurried to pull his undershirt on. _Shameless_, he thought again, but when he turned, Richie was wearing boxers and a robe loosely draped over him. All he needed to complete the picture of smugness was a coffee mug in one hand.

“So, you’re upset,” Richie said.

“I didn’t really mean to come back with you again,” Eddie said. “So I’ll be heading out, if you don’t mind. After all, ‘you’ve got my number,’ so…”

“That’s fair,” Richie said. “I was a dick. But that dude you were with was just gonna hit it and quit it, man. I was doing you a favor, if you think about it. Especially if you’re always this sensitive about one night stands.”

“You were doing me a favor?” Eddie asked, so stunned that he stopped pulling on his clothes to stare at Richie. Richie shrugged as though it were obvious.

“Well, yeah. You were really upset when I hurried you out last time, so I figured that you’re more of a commitment kind of guy. And I’ve slept with Michael, and I promise you, that’s not him.”

“So, to get this straight,” Eddie said, with a very limited hold on his anger, “You tried to save me from a one night stand by _becoming _my one night stand?”

“Well,” Richie said, already making an affirmative face, and Eddie, with great effort, did not launch forward and partake in physical violence, no matter how much he wanted to tear the half-chagrined, half-smug look off of Richie’s face with his teeth. 

“Thank you,” Eddie spat, and pulled on his shirt.

“I mean, you’re welcome,” Richie said, full of bravado that made Eddie want to rip his dick off. He was feeling a little violent that morning.

“Right, I’m heading out,” Eddie said. “Happy fuckin’ New Year.”

Richie said something behind him, but whatever it was, Eddie missed it and slammed the door behind him. Richie fucking Tozier.


	5. Chapter 5

_March 7th, 2003. 9:15 PM_

Work was busy for Eddie in the way that it was always busy for him. There was no real peak season for his car rentals, the way there was a peak tourist season, because most people that hired from Royal Crest were business people that lived in the city. The closest thing he had to his busy season was what Eddie called his stressful season. Stressful season was in the doldrums of winter, after the holidays and before bouts of warmth, and it was so called because that was when all his employees started to get the flu. And when they were off with the flu, Eddie had to pick up the pace, because with the amount of vitamin C he guzzled and the time at which he got his flu shot and how careful he was in applying hand sanitizer, he never ended up off sick with the rest of them. 

The point was that this time of year was usually the busiest, most stressful time of year for Eddie, but that January, Eddie welcomed it. He wanted to stay busy because he wanted the distraction from thinking about Richie Fucking Tozier. 

No, Eddie’s time was taken up, day in and day out, with giving people rides all over the city. Business people, people there on vacation, honeymooners, executives, anyone who wanted to rent a luxury vehicle was more often than not directed to Eddie, so business was booming and Eddie was kept busy, and kept applying hand sanitizer and guzzling vitamin C (in tangy chewable form, rinsed down with organic, GMO-free orange juice). At night, he had his mother to come home to and watch bad TV with (though not SNL anymore, which was fine by Sonya Kaspbrak, who thought it was simply leftist propaganda and couldn’t understand why they were so mean to that lovely Bush fellow). 

And, Eddie continued to get the occasional famous client. Jim Carrey rode in his limo once, and seemed like a very normal, low-key guy to Eddie, which he hadn’t expected at all. Plenty of big-shots in business, whose names meant nothing to Eddie but turned heads when he told stories in bars. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, some New York celebrities. Locals had to get around too, that made plenty of sense, but it was still a bit of a thrill to see Maury Povich in the back of his car.

All in all, it shouldn’t have surprised Eddie when, after bleary January and bleak February trickled away into a blustery and bitter March, he ended up with a client who wanted their party to be picked up very late on a Saturday night out back of the SNL studio. The booking was under a pseudonym, which was fine with Eddie, until he got there and really started thinking about who in the party he might be picking up. He could tell it was comedians because, aside from the location, all the names listed were names of celebrities that weren’t on SNL. It was listed, officially, as the birthday party for Rob Lowe.

Eddie, stupidly enough, didn’t even feel a vague sense of dread until he was already parked outside the building and waiting to pick up the party of Rob Lowe. Then, he thought to himself, “Wait, what about Richie?”

And, right on cue, the fire door opened, and the actors spilled out from it, laughing and throwing arms around one another in a loose, physical way that suggested they were somehow already drunk.

“I said, ‘No, you leave it!’,” one of them cried, and the rest crowed with laughter. 

“Hey, hey, that’s the driver!” a woman said, her voice high and lilting. The woman, who Eddie knew from TV commercials and her impressive depictions of politicians on SNL, leaned all the way over into his front window to scrutinize him. Eddie sat very still with his head pressed up against the headrest, hoping that she wasn’t going to do something very awful, like honk the horn or kiss him. He hated drunk celebrities.

“I asked them to send their cutest driver,” she called, too loud right next to Eddie’s ears. She grabbed his face with her fingers and grinned at him. “You oughta do just fine, but then, it’s not up to me. What do you think, Rich?”

Eddie, low as he dared, whispered “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

Someone hollered “Birthday boy!” as Richie Fucking Tozier, again, staggered over to the car. He looked in the front window as well (Eddie did not look towards him, he refused to turn his head even slightly to accommodate) and his face went pale. 

Eddie felt Richie’s eyes on him, his gaze hot on Eddie’s face. He couldn’t make out his expression, but he knew the stare was intent, and all the while Eddie just kept looking forward. Who cared that it was Richie Tozier? Who cared that Eddie had humiliated himself by sleeping with Richie and expecting it to be more not once, but twice? Who cared that Eddie’s traitorous heart still kicked into high gear at the mere thought of Richie, that all he wanted were Richie’s lips on his and his hand in his hair and-?

No, Eddie was just driving a client, nothing more. Richie was just a problematic client that Eddie had to drive around while he got roaring drunk on his birthday, and probably slept with other, cuter boys that didn’t want anything more out of Richie. It was fine, fine, fine, everything was fine. 

“Stop harassing the driver,” Richie said as he pulled away, and Eddie felt a dull thud in his chest.

“Aw, c’mon, you don’t think he’s cute? I think he’s cute.”

“I think he’s uncomfortable,” Richie said. He took a deep breath of the cold March air, loud enough for Eddie to hear even a few feet away. He leaned in then, and said, just to Eddie, “I’m sorry about them. They’re just drunk.”

“That’s what I’m here for, _sir_,” Eddie said. Still looking straight ahead. If he was a little sharp, no one else seemed to notice, as the crowd was clambering into his car. Richie was still standing by the driver’s side door, like he was waiting for Eddie to turn to him. He wouldn’t, he wasn’t going to give Richie the satisfaction of looking at him, he wasn’t.

He turned to look at Richie. His brown eyes were hugely magnified behind his glasses and utterly impassive, emotionless. Then, for a flash, he looked almost pleading.

“Have a seat,” Eddie suggested, his voice a little smaller. Richie turned away, breaking that too-intense eye-contact, and finally Eddie relaxed, just a tiny bit, in his seat.

“Do you know the _Red Heron_?” the woman right behind him asked. In her enthusiasm, she kicked the back of his seat, and Eddie sighed. It was going to be a long, long night, he decided. But they paid well and it would have to end eventually, so he tipped his hat and nodded and said that of course, ma’am, he’d take them right there. After all, he thought without saying, he knew all the gay bars in the city. He drove in sullen silence while all the voices behind him twittered and exclaimed, loud and drunk and happy. All the voices but one, because for some odd reason, Eddie couldn’t hear Richie amidst all the others.

After they stopped outside the first bar and Eddie promised to be there within five minutes of their call, he drove to the nearest likely looking alley to park. He’d brought a book to read, yet found that he was too keyed up to read. He couldn’t stop bouncing his leg and his hands shook when he tried to turn the pages. Even when he could hold still for a few moments, he found that the words slipped straight through his mind like water through cupped hands. He thought he would give his mutinous mind what it craved and indulge in a moment of thinking about Richie, but found that that didn’t help either. The buzzing in his head just grew louder, and he groaned aloud, slamming his head against the headrest.

After what must have been three hours of staring at the windshield and waiting for them to get out of the bar, waiting and rolling his head from side to side, counting inside his head and considering meditation, Eddie finally checked the dashboard clock to see that five minutes have passed.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!” he said out loud, then grabbed his cell phone and called Jessica.

“Thought you were on the job tonight, Ed,” she said after barely one ring.

“I am,” he said. “It’s Richie Fucking Tozier’s birthday party tonight.”

Jessica gasped so loud that Eddie imagined he heard it not through the phone but across the city.

“You’re _kidding!_” she screamed. Eddie was only a little annoyed that she sounded like Christmas had come early. 

“I wish,” Eddie said. “You could sound a little less pleased about the whole thing.”

“Sorry,” Jessica said, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “But oh my god, Ed, the drama! The coincidence! The destiny of it all! That you two should meet again, and again- it’s like fate!”

“Fate has nothing to do with it!” Eddie snapped. He wasn’t sure why he’d called her, when he knew she’d be like this, but bantering with her felt pleasant and normal and distracted him from the butterflies in his stomach so big and heavy they felt like bats. “He’s obnoxious and he won’t stop showing up in my life.”

“Because it’s fate, and you’re gonna fall in love, and I’m gonna be the best man-”

“You can apologize, or I can hang up.”

“Ugh, fine, sorry, but seriously, Ed, what are the odds?”

“Not bad,” Eddie said, lying. “I mean, there’s only so many rich and famous people in the city, and nobody wants to wait around for cabs and subways when they’re out celebrating. So, they’re young and rich and I’m one of the major companies in the city…”

“Yeah, but it’s you and not Dimi out tonight,” Jessica said. “And it’s his _birthday_, and this is the third time you’ve seen him, and sidebar, I cannot believe you didn’t introduce me on New Years.”

“Yeah, that’s nice and natural. ‘Hey, Jess, meet my hookup, Richie Tozier!’”

“How many times do you have to hookup with someone before you get to just call them your friend, do you think?” Jessica mused.

“I don’t think you ever call your hookups your friends unless they’re friends with benefits, which is a whole category unto itself,” Eddie said. And he did feel a little more relaxed, a little more himself talking to her. “Speaking of hookups, whatever happened to that stagehand you were seeing?”

“Oh, well, speaking of times when it is absolutely not fate intervening, Mark is working on _Phantom _right now, so I haven’t seen him in a month. _But_, he did call the other day, and I was thinking…”

The sound of her voice held Eddie steady, but he could feel the bat-butterflies creeping back into his stomach, tentatively flapping again. He knew he ought to go and leave the line free, and that he’d see Jessica tomorrow, probably, he thought disparagingly, with another ‘hooking up with Richie Tozier’ story.

“I should go,” he said eventually, in between her comparison of Mark and the boy with her in the chorus line of her current show. “But I’ll talk to you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Tell me _everything_,” she said. “I mean it, Kaspbrak.”

“Yes, fine, I always do,” Eddie said. “Goodbye.”

“Bye.”

He let his head slam against the back of the headrest, trying to knock some sense into his brain. It was just a job. Just a regular, boring night out driving drunks around, and he was going to be fine. Fine. 

The bats in his stomach did not agree.

_March 7th, 2003. 10:44 PM_

By the time they called Eddie to go to the next bar, most of the crowd was pretty drunk. The loud brunette girl who seemed to be in charge spilled into the passenger seat, giggling all the while in an unselfconscious way that Eddie saw more often in 21st birthday parties and bachelor parties than in groups of work friends. 

The birthday boy himself, though, was remarkably sober, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor as they all climbed in, shoulders hunched over.

“Twenty-seventh and Dalton!” someone cried, while someone else said “No, now, McClaren’s!”

“C’mon, guys, let Rich decide!” said the head bitch in charge, and Eddie, forgetting his professional distance and pretense that he didn’t know the cast of SNL, turned back to Richie as well. 

Richie looked up slowly, meeting Eddie’s eyes with what looked like - well, it couldn’t be dismay, but he didn’t look very happy for a birthday boy.

“Um, do you know Lunaria?” he asked, and Eddie nodded, eyes still fixed on Richie. He looked _miserable_ was how he looked, though Eddie couldn’t figure out why. Maybe, he thought vindictively, he’d been turned down at the first bar. 

Eddie faced forward again and began to drive. He took a deep breath to collect himself, then tried to make pleasant conversation with the woman in the front seat. “Having a good time?” he asked her. 

“Yeah we are!” she said, smiling broadly. She leaned in over the gearshift, head nearly resting on his shoulder. Eddie made a great effort to stay where he was and to not cringe away from her.

“Tell me, cutie, which, ah, team are you batting for?” she asked.

Eddie bit back a smile.

“Not yours,” he said apologetically. But if he expected her to be disappointed, he was incorrect, for she simply squealed. 

“Rich!” she cried, her voice piercing the air with its high pitch. “The cute cabbie’s not stra-aight!”

Eddie’s only saving grace as he felt heat rise in his cheeks was that he was certain that Richie was more embarrassed of his drunk friend than Eddie was. Eddie cut a glance at the rear view mirror and saw, sure enough, that Richie Tozier had sunk in his seat, his gaze fixed out the window and his cheeks a healthy shade of pink.

“Thanks, Tina,” he said in a small voice.

Eddie held back a slightly meaner smile this time. If he was miserable, at least Richie was too. 

Mostly, the drunks entertained themselves between one bar and the other. Eddie tried to busy himself with the novel he’d just picked up (“Black Rapids,” by William Denbrough, a horror novel, even though he usually didn’t go for that sort of book, the cover had just stuck out to him for some reason or another) while they were in one bar or another, but he found he had trouble focusing. For as unkindly happy as he was that Richie appeared to be having a worse and worse night with each stop, Eddie couldn’t help but desperately wonder why his night was going so badly. 

_March 8th, 2003. 3:45 AM._

After bar number four, Richie looked thoroughly miserable, to the point that some of his friends had actually started noticing. 

“Wanna call it a night, man?” a blonde girl asked kindly, and when Richie said maybe, yeah (mumbled it into the lapels of his coat, but Eddie could still hear like his ears were specifically attuned to the other man) Head Bitch In Charge instructed Eddie where to take each of them home.

Of course, it took until it was just Eddie, Head Bitch In Charge, and Richie left in the car for Eddie to realize that Head Bitch In Charge was drunk enough that she needed to go home before Richie. She directed Eddie to her apartment, gave Richie a sloppy kiss on the forehead, and wished him a happy birthday. Then she slid out of the car, and Richie and Eddie were left alone together.

Eddie had half a second to decide how to approach the situation, and he decided that the best way to deal with it was a ridiculous excess of formality.

“Where to, sir?” he asked. Richie winced.

“Don’t remember?” he asked.

“I didn’t want to presume,” said Eddie, and he put the car back into drive. As he caught sight of Richie’s eyes in the rear view mirror again, he realized with some surprise that Richie looked completely sober.

“Not having fun?” Eddie asked. Richie snorted.

“You could say that,” he said. “This isn’t exactly the night I had in mind for myself.”

“You haven’t been drinking,” Eddie said. It wasn’t a question, but Richie shook his head.

“No, I haven’t,” he agreed. 

“Well, isn’t this your birthday party?” Eddie asked. “No drinks, no boys… it doesn’t seem like that much fun for you. If you don’t mind my saying.”

“Guess you can say what you want,” Richie said. He had let his head roll back and was then staring at the ceiling of the car. “I just wasn’t in the mood tonight.”

In spite of himself, Eddie felt a twinge of pity for Richie. It was his birthday, after all, he tried to rationalize the thoughts in his mind. He tried not to connect it with the mere sight of Richie looking sad, dampness pricking at the edge of his eyes. Surely the mere sight of him couldn’t be enough to get Eddie this worked up.

“Did something happen?” Eddie asked.

“Yeah, there’s only one fucking driver in the whole goddamn city, apparently, and I fucked myself over,” Richie said. He sniffed, and the pang in Eddie’s heart got a little sharper. “Do you care?”

“Yes,” Eddie said. “I don’t want you to be miserable.”

He was shocked to realize just how true - how deeply true - that was. He wanted, more than anything, for Richie to not look like this - sober and on the edge of tears. He wanted him to look happy.

“Why?” Richie asked. 

Eddie shrugged. 

‘My default setting isn’t wishing misery on people, believe it or not,” he said. Richie laughed. They weren’t far from his apartment, and suddenly Eddie wished the drive were longer. He sighed. “Did I really ruin your whole night?”

“No,” Richie said. He pushed his hair out of his face and heaved a sigh. He was pretty, Eddie thought before he could stop the treacherous thought in its tracks. “I ruined my night, back on New Years. Before that, actually, I guess.”

He met Eddie’s eyes in the rear view mirror. 

“I guess I never said I’m sorry,” he said.

“You sure you’re sober?” Eddie asked with a light, mirthless laugh.

“Stone cold,” Richie said. “I just - there’s something about you. I love it and it scares the shit out of me, Eds.”

_Eds, Eds, Eds._

“What in the ever-loveing fuck does that mean?” Eddie asked, turning all the way round in the seat and abandoning formality. “I mean, seriously?”

“I don’t know!” Richie said. He had both hands up by his face, and he looked somehow frantic. “I don’t know what I mean, I just mean there’s something _more _about you, something to you that I don’t feel with anyone else!”

“Are you- asking me out? Or something?” Eddie asked. Driving was starting to get dicey in his emotional state, so he pulled over and turned on his hazard lights. It was nearly four in the morning, and people could deal.

“No,” Richie said, and Eddie ignored the now familiar thud of rejection somewhere in his chest. “I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m just trying to explain that, fuck, I can’t get you out of my head. I think about you all the time and you’re just some dude and seeing you tonight makes me feel guilty and throws me off my game and - ugh, it’s like I’ve got some sort of weird, fetish thing for you.”

“Some sort of weird fetish?” Eddie repeated. “That’s a crush, dipshit.”

“It’s not like that!” Richie said. “I’ve fallen for dudes before, but this is different.”

“Well, when you figure it out, how bout you call me and I’ll lead you on and ditch you, twice,” Eddie snapped. Richie’s face crumpled. “Because while you’re over there figuring out your feelings, I’ve got mine sorted. You’re an asshole, and a mistake I made, twice. Fool me once and all that. I don’t intend to fuck up again.”

“Don’t you feel this?” Richie asked.

“Feel what?!” Eddie asked. “Rejected and kinda queasy? I feel that!”

“Like I know you!” Richie cried. “We know each other, like, like soulmates or something. And for the record, the second time you left before letting me explain myself.”

“Before you could explain that you’re sorry and that you think we’re soulmates?” Eddie said. 

“Kinda,” Richie said. 

Eddie took in a deep, steadying breath. He turned off the hazard lights and pulled back into the road.

“Where are you going?”

“Driving you home,” Eddie said. “You’re intoxicated, I have a job to do.”

“I told you, I’m not drunk,” Richie said.

“Right, but you’re acting…. Nevermind,” Eddie said. They drove in silence for a while.

“I do feel like I know you,” Eddie whispered. “But you’re acting like a dick.”

“I know,” Richie said, and he sounded miserable about it. “I couldn’t drink, feeling bad about it.”

“Good,” Eddie said with a venom he didn’t feel.

They drove in silence, with no sounds but the dim noise of the city outside the car. The distance between the front and back seat seemed to stretch for miles, though Richie was only feet from Eddie.

“Can we start over?” Richie asked in a small voice.

Eddie pulled up next to his building, unclipped his seatbelt, and opened Richie’s door for him without a word.

“We’re here,” he said, and Richie looked up at him with surprisingly vulnerable eyes. Eddie smiled down at him, not his usual professional, detached smile, but something warmer, something stupidly hopeful.

“You’ve got my number, right?” he said. Richie winced, but Eddie kept smiling at him until he looked up. 

“Try it,” Eddie said. He held out his hand, and Richie took it unsteadily, climbing out of the car.

“Good night, Eds,” Richie said. Eddie bit his lip, trying not to smile again. There was no reason to get him too excited. No reason to get himself too excited, if it turned out that Richie really was drunk, and forgot all about this. And yet.

“Night, Rich,” he said, too soft for Richie, already at the doorstep to hear. 

The wings in his stomach fluttered lightly, hopefully. 


	6. Chapter 6

March 8th, 2003. 10:09 AM

_ Good morning, handsome. How’d you sleep?_

Eddie blinked at his phone, confused. He didn’t recognize the number, and for a moment, he didn’t remember the previous night. It came back to him in slow bursts, the miserable night, the shocking proclamation of - what? Not love, not exactly, but something from Richie. 

And now, a text, that had to come from Richie. At least, Eddie assumed it was Richie.

_Who is this?_ he sent back, regretting it as soon as he hit send. His phone started to ring a moment later.

“Hello?” Eddie said, his voice higher than he wanted it to be.

“_I have your number, remember?_” Richie said, his voice warm and low and somehow conveying a smile even though Eddie couldn’t see a thing. 

“Yeah, it’s starting to be our freaking catchphrase,” Eddie said. “You’re up early.”

“_I have work. You?_”

“I have work,” Eddie repeated, which wasn’t quite true. It was his off day, but he did have a schedule to stay on, and his doctor told him it was important to practice good sleep hygiene and to never sleep in more than three hours past his usual time to wake up, so Eddie was already having an off morning. “Kinda.”

“_So, I was wondering,_” Richie said in a voice that sounded like the twirling and untwirling of a phone cord. “_Do you want to get dinner sometime?_”

Eddie floundered. He had, in his defense, just woken up, but he had no reason to be flustered. Richie was just some _boy_, some dumb boy who had been his one night stand twice now. His two night stand that he shouldn’t even like. And yet.

“When?” Eddie asked, wishing that the mere sound of Richie’s voice wasn’t enough to make him melt. 

“_Tomorrow,_” Richie said. 

“Eager,” Eddie said. He was pacing (gonna wear a hole in the floor like that, Eddie-bear!) and he was smiling. 

“_I miss your sparkling personality,_” Richie said. “_You free?_”

“I’m free,” Eddie said. “Do you want me to pick you up?”

“_How bout you meet me at the restaurant?_” Richie said. 

Eddie smiled down into the phone, stopped pacing for a second to let his eyes close with the force of the grin. He couldn’t explain why he was so insanely, over the top happy, but he felt warm and sunshiney and full to the brim with happiness.

“I’ll see you there,” he agreed. 

Richie texted him the name and address of the place, and Eddie debated bringing his motorcycle out, just to freak him out. He lay on his bed daydreaming about his _date _the next day, like a teenager, and tried not to make any embarrassing noises out loud. He had a date, a real date with Richie Tozier of all people. And he should be embarrassed that he had even agreed after everything that went down, but he couldn’t be.

Deep down, way deep down, so deep he couldn’t even let himself think it, he knew it was because Richie was right. There was something between them, something extra and inexplicable, but Eddie wasn’t thinking about that. He refused to.

Instead, he realized that he had called Jessica the previous night and she desperately needed an update, so he made plans to meet her and Demetrios at the bar that night. And then he went back to lying on his bed and grinning up at the ceiling, where no one could see him. 

He had a date, a proper date. And he promised himself he wasn’t going to sleep with Richie tomorrow night. God, but his high school self would think him such a- well, probably all kinds of bad things about him, that his standards were: “Don’t sleep with the guy who stood you up two times already, at least, not on the first date.” Still. Slutty or not, he had a date.

Only one thing could bring his mood down that beautiful, sunny Saturday morning.

March 8th, 2003. 11:15 AM. 

“Eddie-bear!”

Eddie’s cell phone was buried deep in his pocket as he walked into his mom’s apartment, but it seemed to weigh a thousand pounds and burn against the side of his leg, saying she was going to know, she would find out, somehow she would know about Richie and about the way he looked at boys and _all _of it.

That, Eddie told himself, was ridiculous, and he smiled his best formal, polite-for-the-customer smile at his mom.

“You’re late,” she said, her lips stuck out in a fishy sort of pout. “Were you out late again last night?”

“It’s my job, Ma,” Eddie said. “People wanna stay out late, that’s what they pay me for.”

“It’s not good for you, Eddie. You know you have a delicate disposition and you need to keep yourself on a strict schedule.”

“I know, Ma,” Eddie said wearily. He wanted to sink into the couch adjacent to her big La-Z-Boy, just sit and talk with her and tell her he had a date, like a normal mother-son relationship might work, but he didn’t have the luxury of that. He went straight for the kitchen and began pouring medication into a little glass he kept by the side of the sink, a kaleidoscope of pills, this one green gel, this one a tight little red, this one seashell blue. 

Eddie brought out his mother’s cup of medication, a bottle of water (“I don’t trust that New York City water, Eddie, it’s hard and it’s not safe there’s so much iron in it do you know what that can _do_ to a person?”) and went back to the kitchen to make her usual breakfast of whole wheat toast, butter, and a pecan pinwheel from the box. 

“I just don’t understand why you have to work those hours,” she said when he was back in the room, gulping down medication one pill at a time. “I mean, you own the place, don’t you? Why not have someone else work the late shift so you can stay in and relax with me?”

Eddie winced. He didn’t want to spend his weekends with his mother, but for some reason she never seemed to surmise that her son, in his twenties, had other things to do with his life than to watch TV and listen to her rant about how liberals were ruining the country. For example, at the moment, he had a date to spend time being anxious over and preparing for, and it wasn’t the sort of date he could tell his mom about.

Of course, that worked out well for the both of them. His mother was of the opinion that Eddie should settle down with a nice girl one day, say, when he was fifty or so, but in the meantime he needn’t worry about dating when he had his dear old mom. 

None of this was the sort of stuff he could say to his mom, so he shrugged and forced a smile over at her.

“Some jobs are too important to delegate,” he said. He couldn’t tell her that most of his staff was out with the flu either - she’d be convinced he would get it too and probably give herself a heart attack. It was plenty common enough in women her age, common enough that Eddie had to be worried about it.

His mother sniffed and swallowed another horse pill. 

“I still think you shouldn’t be working so late. It’s bad for you, Eddie, and you know you have a delicate constitution.”

“I know,” Eddie said, ducking his head in acknowledgement. Maybe he shouldn’t work so late, she had a point. He did feel a little… flushed.

_Thinking of Richie_, the back of his mind supplied, unhelpfully. His phone dinged with a text, and Eddie’s hand shot down to his pocket before he could stop himself.

“Work, again?” his mother asked in a disgusted voice. Eddie gave her a thin smile.

“No idea,” he said, pulling his hand reluctantly away from his pocket. He could always check it later, he thought. “Not important. Take all those, okay? No hiding any.” 

His mother continued to gulp down her medication obediently, and Eddie sat down on the edge of the armchair next to her.

“So, Ma,” Eddie said. “I’ll actually be working again tomorrow night. Just so you know, and you can get your evening medication for yourself, and-”

“Tomorrow?” she said. “Oh no, I don’t think so. Tomorrow is Sunday, sweetheart, the second Sunday of the month. You didn’t forget, did you?”

Eddie’s semi-pleasant thoughts of Richie and dinner grinded to a halt as he held back a groan. Second Sunday was, of course, the day his mother insisted they visit with his other aunt, Suzie, and the dinners were always long and littered with ceaseless cooing over Eddie that made him feel roughly five years old. He had forgotten, of course, repressed the thought, more like.

“We’ll just have to miss this month,” Eddie said brusquely. “There’s a client I absolutely can’t back out of, and-”

“Eddie!” his mother wailed. She stretched out her hand and clasped his wrist with it, veins bulging on her arm and beady eyes popping out in her face. “Eddie, you caaaan’t!”

“Mom,” Eddie pleaded. He tried, limply, to pull his hand away from her, but her fingers dug into his wrist until they seemed to grip the very bones that held his hand to his arm. She was older, frail, but still filled with sinewy strength that Eddie couldn’t seem to break away from. “Mom, please don’t make a scene! I don’t want to work, not through dinner, of course not, but I’ve got to!”

“Why are you doing this to me, Eddie?!” she pleaded. “Can’t you get someone else to cover your shift? You know how important this is to us.”

“I know, I know,” Eddie said. “But everyone at work is out sick with the flu, and-”

Oh, but now he’d done it. Her eyes went wider, her doughy face grew pale, and her mouth formed a limp ‘o’ shape in the middle of her face.

“Eddie, you shouldn’t be around them! It’s not safe!” she cried. “Your immune system-!”

“That’s why I sent them home from work, Ma!” Eddie said loudly. The neighbors were probably going to complain again, Jesus, like Eddie didn’t have enough that he had to take care of. “So I wouldn’t catch anything, see? I don’t want them working while they’re sick, germing up the cars, so I have to pick up their shifts.”

“But,” she sniffed. “Tomorrow night-”

“I can’t just drop it, and I can’t give it to anyone else, and one of us has to make money somehow!” Eddie burst out. His mother looked shocked, face slack like she’d been slapped, and Eddie winced. He didn’t like bringing up the fact that he was paying for his mom - she had, as she had informed him many times over, earned it by raising him, by caring for such a sickly kid from such a young age, and it was a child’s natural duty to take care of their parents in their old age (even if she wasn’t that old yet). Eddie felt guilty, but he didn’t take it back, nor did he apologize. For once, he had no intent to back down and give up on finally getting a date with the elusive Richie Tozier. 

(Richie Tozier, Richie Tozier, Richie Tozier, his heart echoed back, dreamily.)

“I can’t believe you’re being so cruel,” his mother sniffed, and Eddie, with a great degree of patience, did not roll his eyes. 

“I’m sorry, Ma,” he said. “Look, I’ll see if I can get out of it. I’ll talk to Demetrios, and see if he’s feeling better.” (Demetrios, of course, wasn’t sick, but was enjoying his negotiated Sundays off, not that his mother would remember that.) “Maybe you could call Suzie and see if she’d reschedule?”

His mother sniffed again. 

“I don’t know when you started acting like this,” she said. “So self-centered, like the world has to cater to your schedule in particular.”

“Ma, I told you, I have to work,” Eddie said again, frustrated. He was lying, sure, but there had been many a time when they’d had a similar argument and he wasn’t lying. Still, it was with a little frustration and a lot of guilt that he said “I’ll ask, okay? I’m doing everything I can.”

“You’re overworking yourself!” she said. “You could get hurt, Eddie.”

And yeah, sure. Eddie could always get hurt. 

March 8th, 2003. 9:45 PM

Eddie had just finished wiping down the tables and chairs when Demetrios showed up, a beer in one hand and a shot glass full of amber liquid in the other. He handed Eddie the beer and immediately downed the shot, letting out a sigh and wiping his mouth.

“Long day?” Eddie asked him.

“Long fucking day,” Demetrios said, and held his hand up to the passing waiter. “Can I get another of these? Thanks. I dealt with the worst fucking woman today, but never mind me. I saw the roster from last night as I was clocking out. Who all in the cast of SNL were you babysitting? Was it the fucking guy again?”

“Yeah, funny story,” Eddie said, but then Jessica showed up, pulling up a seat.

“Are we talking about how Eddie spent the night with Richie Tozier again?” she asked, and Demetrios choked on his own spit. 

“Wiat, you didn’t-!”

“No!” Eddie said. “We didn’t - she means he was in the car, it was his fucking birthday, but we didn’t- no.”

“Good,” Demetrios said. “That guy is a jackass, and the less you see of him, the better.”  
“So, funny thing-” Eddie said.

“Did you give it to him at the end of the night?” Jessica asked. “Like, once you were off duty?”  
“Well, thing is, we were the last two people in the car, coincidentally,” Eddie said. 

“Oh, tell me you told him off, it’ll make my day so much better,” Demetrios said.

“Yeah, but here’s the really funny thing,” Eddie said. “He apologized to me and said we were soulmates and today he called me and tomorrow we have a date.”

For a moment, there was nothing but the clink of glasses and the background hum of other people in the bar talking while Demetrios and Jessica stared at him.

“Do you want to slap him?” Jessica asked Demetrios.

“Eddie, what have we learned about giving boys second chances?” Demetrios asked.

“Third chances! Let us not forget New Years!” Jessica said. 

“Third chances!” Demetrios repeated. 

“Look, I know it’s a little- you didn’t hear him last night,” Eddie said. 

“He said you were _soul mates_?” Jessica repeated, her voice full of so much venom and derision that Eddie physically drew back a little. He was trying not to feel actively hurt, but he was a little bit hurt.

“I’m not an idiot,” Eddie said, and Jessica let out a snort.

“You’re clearly a little bit of an idiot,” she said. “An idiot for Richie Tozier.”

Eddie turned to Demetrios, who looked apologetic, but also a little frustrated. The waiter arrived with another shot glass and Demetrios drained it at once, not looking away from Eddie’s face as he did so.

“This is a bad idea,” he said. “The dude’s already dined and dashed twice, if you know what I mean.”

“Don’t be a dick,” Eddie said. He felt suddenly as though his skin were too tight, the way he felt in public bathrooms and dirty bars and hospice wards. Like he was dirty, and the dirt was deeper than his skin, impossible to shower away. 

“We’re not trying to be mean,” Demetrios said, though Jessica’s disdainful look said otherwise. “We just worry about you, Ed.”

And that was it, somehow, that name. Eddie went by Ed to his friends, Edward at work, Eddie to his mom and sometimes to his friends, but Ed was just a little too close in that moment to ‘Eds,’ a name he was certain he’d never heard before, something his mom said would be a silly nickname, but one that felt right in Richie’s mouth, at home in Eddie’s ears. 

Maybe soulmates wasn’t that crazy after all.

“I’m a big boy,” Eddie said. “And, besides, he had a rotten birthday. Tina Fey managed to get all the guys and he didn’t even drink. The least I can do is go on a date with the guy.”

“Do you promise not to sleep with him? Again?” Jessica said. Eddie rolled his eyes.

“Maybe I really like sleeping with him, have you considered that that’s why I’m going on a date with the dude?” he asked, and Jessica wrinkled up her nose. 

“Richie Tozier,” she said. “I can’t picture it.”

“I can describe it to you in vivid detail if you like,” Eddie said, leering at her, and she squealed. 

“No, quit it!” Jessica said. 

“Tell me about Phantom guy,” Eddie said, and Jessica was off to the races, Richie Tozier forgotten. Though Demetrios kept eyeing him in a way that made Eddie sure the matter wasn’t really forgotten, it had passed for the moment. 

What Eddie couldn’t explain was why Richie was right. There was something more between the two of them, he could feel it. Richie felt like someone he’d known his whole life, like an integral part of Eddie’s life though they’d only met the handful of times. He was obsessed with him, he realized an hour or so later, staring down at the wood grain of the table and thinking not of the germs embedded in it but of where Richie was and what he was doing at that moment. He felt like he belonged in Eddie’s life in a way that Eddie couldn’t articulate, couldn’t put into words.

Eddie went home late that night not feeling reassured or bolstered by his friends, but excited for the next day nonetheless. He was going to see Richie again, and the thought carried him into sleep. Very, very late that night, but not quite morning, he got another text, one that mirrored his own thoughts perfectly.

_Can’t wait to see u tmmrw._


	7. Chapter 7

March 9th, 2003. 5:35 PM.

Richie wasn’t late. Richie wasn’t even a little bit late because the date wasn’t starting for another hour and a half and Eddie hadn’t even left the house to go to the restaurant yet but what if Richie was late? What if he didn’t show up at all? What if Eddie wore something stupid or showed up underdressed? Or overdressed? Or what if Richie never came because it was a stupid childish idea and he was just a drunken liar who didn’t believe in soulmates or dating someone with a little kid’s name like “Eddie” or dating at all and it was just another embarrassing disaster?

Eddie had no answer to any of these questions, but he did have a decent looking sport coat to wear over a button up shirt that was fancy enough for anything that wasn’t black tie. And he had a cell phone full of texts from Richie saying he was eager (“but I’m trying not to be too eager so I’ll shut up now”) for their date that night. And he had a memory of Richie with enormous eyes, trying to articulate the impossible thing they could feel between them. All of these things had to count for something, Eddie thought.

Of course, he also had the problem of his mother, who knew he would be leaving for “work” soon and would be scrutinizing every aspect of him to see that he was telling the truth, so Eddie had to look a little like he was on the job, as he had nearly every time he’d seen Richie before. Maybe the man liked muted tones and an aggressively professional posture. Maybe, thought Eddie, almost hysterically, he had a driver kink. Anything was possible, and Eddie had met a few of that type before. 

Mostly, Eddie felt overwhelmingly like a nervous teenager. He was afraid that Richie wouldn’t _like _him like him when given half the chance to get to know him, and he couldn’t stop fidgeting with his hair like he was fifteen. But his only option was styling his hair for another hour straight or showing up to the restaurant too early to bear. 

However, once Eddie started pulling his hair out with his nervous fingers, he started to think that maybe going to the damn restaurant early wouldn’t be the end of the world.

“Gotta run, Ma!” he called into the next apartment, and when she yelled back at him asking where he was going and when he’d be coming home, he pretended not to hear her. 

Eddie walked out onto the street, hair already somehow out of place, he could feel it brushing against the nape of his neck. Too long, he should have gotten a haircut, should’ve been more prepared. He got a taxi to the restaurant, and showed up in front of the door almost a full hour early.

God, but Eddie was so fucked. He was head over heels in love with this idiot and he had no idea what to do with himself. 

However, as Eddie stepped out of the cab, he saw that there was already a man pacing outside the restaurant, his thick head of curls bouncing slightly and the late evening light glinting off his glasses. Eddie squinted at him, took a step forward.

“Richie?” he asked. 

Richie spun around, his eyes enormous with terror, and when he saw Eddie, he let out a loud guffaw.

“Eds, you’re, like, an hour early. That’s embarrassing,” he said.

“So are you,” Eddie said. Richie laughed again, one hand clamped to the back of his neck, and he said: “Yeah, yeah, I am.”

Eddie drank in the sight of him. Richie stood tall in the thick and angular shadows of the street lights around them. He wasn’t in a blazer, like Eddie, but a leather jacket over his button down shirt. He was wearing jeans, which made Eddie feel ridiculously overdressed in slacks and loafers, but oh well. Richie was there, and he was, well, pretty. Eddie couldn’t stop staring at him, at the firm lines of his shoulders under his jacket.

“See something you like?” Richie asked.

“That line would be funnier if we were inside, looking at a menu,” Eddie told him, and Richie laughed.

“You know, usually the polite thing to do when a comedian makes a joke is to laugh,” he told him, and Eddie shrugged.

“Tell funnier jokes,” he said, then with a surge of bravery (he was brave, dammit, he was) he stretched out his arm for Richie to take. Richie placed his arm in Eddie’s and the two of them walked up the steps into the restaurant together, Eddie’s heart whirring like helicopter blades. They made it all the way in the door and up to the maitre d's podium before he had to yank his inhaler out of his pocket and take an enormous suck from it, the whirring, crinkling noise of it deafeningly loud. Richie caught sight of him and snickered.

“Edward Kaspbrak blasts off,” he said, one brow raised, and Eddie felt heat rise to his cheeks.

“For my asthma,” he said, unnecessarily, as though there were other reasons people carried around inhalers and took hits off of them. It wasn’t exactly recreational.

He was spared the embarrassment of Richie responding to that in any way by Richi telling the maitre d “Two, please,” and the two of them getting escorted to a table in the way back, where the restaurant was still quiet. 

“So,” Eddie said, fidgeting his way into the booth, squirming against the cracked vinyl of the seat. “You bring all your dates here?”

“Nope,” Richie said. “Uh, tell the truth, I don’t go on a lot of dates, per se.” He gave Eddie a grin that, to Eddie’s surprise, was clearly one of nerves. Eddie gave him an encouraging smile back. 

“New question, then,” Eddie said. “What made you change your mind about me? I mean, you know, why are we here? On a date?”

“Well,” Richie looked uncomfortable then, like he was too small for limbs as long as his, and didn’t know what to do with all the extra surface area of his body. “I kind of put my cards on the table the other night. I don’t know how to explain it, exactly. It’s just, something about you. I feel like I know you, like we’re… ugh, don’t get up and leave right now, but I feel like you’re important.”

“Soulmates,” Eddie reminded him. Richie winced.

“I mean, kind of,” he said. “I just… can’t think of a better wording for it. I’m not saying that you and I are like, destined to get married or anything-”

“Well, we’d have a long time to wait before that could ever happen,” Eddie snorted, and Richie gave him a passing smile.

“I just mean that… maybe there are some people in the world that you just connect with. Like, you’re tuned into the same radio station as they are at the same time.”

“And you and me, we’re tuned to the same radio station?” Eddie asked. Richie groaned.

“I’m no good at explaining this,” he said, and Eddie shook his head.

“No, no, you’re fine, I’m just clarifying, is all,” he said. Then, feeling like he’d held back as long as he physically could, he shyly added “I feel it too, you know.”

“Really?” Richie asked.

“Why on earth would I have said yes to a date with you otherwise?” Eddie asked, and Richie snorted. 

“Why don’t we stop talking about soulmates and start talking about something normal instead,” Richie said. “What do people usually talk about on first dates? I never go on them.”

“Lucky for you, I go on a lot of first dates,” Eddie said, neglecting to mention that he rarely got past third dates, either because of his “abrasive” personality or because there was no meeting the parents opportunity. “So, I know how this goes. What comes next is awkward small talk.”

“Okay,” Richie said, affecting a serious expression as he leaned forward. “Hit me with your boring questions.”

With all the seriousness of asking a murder confession, Eddie leaned forward. “What,” he asked, “Is your favorite color?”

The corners of Richie’s mouth twitched, but he otherwise kept a straight face. 

“Orange,” he said. “You?”

“Blue,” Eddie said as a voice deep, deep down in the back of his mind whispered _brown brown like his eyes_-

Christ, no, they’d only just met, for crying out loud!

“Clashing, I like it,” Richie said. “What else?”

“Favorite flavor of ice cream,” Eddie shot at him.

“Mint chip,” Richie said. “And you?”

“Strawberry,” Eddie said. “What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?”

“Oh, hell no,” Richie said with a laugh. “That’s definitely something that can wait for the second date.”

“I told you, it’d be small talk,” Eddie said, and Richie shook his head again, laughing.

“Yeah, I was prepared to talk about the weather, and the unseasonably cold March we’re having. Not any stories from high school.”

“So it was in high school,” Eddie said, and Richie laughed again. He laughed easily and often, and it was a loud, unselfconscious laugh. Eddie could get used to the sound of it, he thought. 

“Wasn’t everyone’s most embarrassing experiences in high school?” Richie asked. There were two tiny spots of pink high up on Richie’s cheeks. “You know, being a closet case, seeing lots of pretty boys around. It’s easy to embarrass yourself.”

“I was way too deep in the closet for that late in high school,” Eddie said. “I don’t think I even came out to myself until well into college.”

“So, are you new to the dating scene, then?” Richie asked, leaning forward and giving Eddie a smoldering look.

“I’m not that young,” Eddie said. “It’s been a few years.”

“I guess I don’t know how old you are,” Richie said. “But you’ve gotta be, like, twenty five to drive for a car service, right?” 

“To rent a car,” Eddie said. “I don’t know what the rules are for other companies, but at mine you can be any age over 18. Goes extra if you’re the owner, like me.”

“You own your company?” Richie asked, and he sounded a teensy bit impressed, which was, of course, Eddie’s goal in the first place. But Eddie simply shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal to him.

“Yeah, it’s not a huge company or anything, but I do,” he said. 

“So, are you over twenty-five?” Richie asked. “That’s only impolite if you ask women, by the way, so I lucked out by being gay as hell and curious as I am.”

“I’m twenty-seven,” said Eddie. 

“Coinkadink, I just turned twenty-seven as well,” Richie said. (tk double check the math) “And to think, maybe you could’ve gone to high school with me and experienced the embarrassment first hand.”

“I missed out,” Eddie said, smiling with him. The waiter came over and brought them their water glasses and menus, and Eddie realized that they had hardly been there for long at all. They ordered with only minor difficulty - Eddie was allergic to something in nearly every dish on the menu, but in spite of being lactose intolerant he ordered a cheese dish, deciding that he could deal with it later if he had any issues. He wasn’t about to make a scene ordering something special and off-menu on his first date, and in return he was greeted with Richie’s still beaming face when he handed the menu back to the waiter.

“What was your most embarrassing moment?” Richie asked.

“Well, okay, I woke up in this dude’s apartment and he told me he had my business card,” Eddie said, and Richie rolled his eyes.

“Not gonna let me live that down, huh?” he asked.

“Probably not,” Eddie said. “I’m known for my grudge holding.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Richie said. “Okay, you know what? My turn. What are your parents like?”

“Oh,” Eddie said, because this wasn’t a great first date topic for him. “Well, my dad died when I was five, so I didn’t really get to know him. Everyone says he was a great guy, though. My mom raised me on her own, and she was… a little overbearing, but she loves me a lot. She doesn’t know, though, that I’m… you know.”

“Gay?” Richie asked, making a face that could’ve been disdain but was probably sympathy. 

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Yeah, that. What about your parents?”

“Do they know I’m gay? Nah, they totally missed it in all the sketches where I make out with hot boys,” Richie said, and Eddie laughed a little, nervous laugh.

“No, I mean, what are they like?” he asked.

“Maggie and Went are the best,” Richie said. “Started calling them by their first names in middle school to bug them, but I think they kinda liked it and now I’m stuck in the habit. My dad’s a dentist and my mom is kind of a house wife, but they’re shockingly liberal and probably my best friends. I came out to them before I came out to, you know, the whole wide world.”

“That’s cool,” Eddie said. “I mean, they sound great.” Familiar sounding, even, the names Maggie and Went, though they weren’t exactly common names. “And they’re your best friends? Not the NBC Studios gang?”

“I mean, they’re great too,” Richie said. “But I’m still kind of the new kid. Still missing my squad from Second City, back in Chicago.”

“How long did you live in Chicago?”

“God, all through college and a little more, maybe six years? Seven? I loved that city. You always been in New York?”

“Since high school,” Eddie said. “And I love it here. It’s a city you can get lost in, you know?”

“You can’t get lost in New York,” Richie scoffed. “The streets are numbered!”  
‘Oh, you know what I mean, jackass,” Eddie said, and immediately felt he could kick himself. He didn’t mean to swear at the hot boy, but if Richie was offended, he didn’t show it, and instead just guffawed.

“Yeah, fine, I know what you mean, I guess. You can be anonymous here, even if you’re famous.”

“Exactly,” Eddie said. “I’m not a very big attention seeker so, you know, I like the anonymity.”  
“You can get that in any city,” Richie argued, and Eddie shook his head. 

“Not like New York,” he said. “I don’t know. I would never move. I feel like I belong here.”

“It sounds nice,” Richie said. “To know you belong somewhere.” He paused for a second, then said “Jesus, okay, that sounded melodramatic, but what I mean is. I don’t know, I’ve never lived anywhere that really felt like home. We moved away from my hometown back when I was 14 or 15 and ever since then I’ve felt like I’m just meant to wander or something.”

“I think home has less to do with the place and more to do with the people there,” Eddie said. “All my friends live in New York, so it’s where I belong. I guess if we all got up and moved it would be easy for home to be somewhere else.”

“I like that,” said Richie. Eddie gave him a soft smile.

“I’m glad.”

The most shocking thing about the date was how polite Richie could be, when he was trying. He was a perfect gentleman to Eddie as he continued to play the game of asking first date questions, and waited for both their food to come out before he started eating. He was, in short, apologetic, and Eddie was starting to feel rather guilty about keeping him on the hook by the time their dinner was finished.

“You don’t have to be this… nice,” Eddie said eventually. 

“Sorry?” said Richie.

“I mean, you usually joke more. You’re kind of a tool, actually. This is a little off-putting,” Eddie said. Richie gave him a rather confused grin.

“So, what, now you want me to be a dick again?” he asked.

“No, not that,” Eddie said. “I just. I don’t know. I want you to be you, okay?”

“This is me,” Richie promised. “Just me with the volume turned down.” 

“I don’t mind you being loud,” Eddie said. Richie laughed at that.

“That’d be a first,” he said. “Someone who doesn’t mind my being loud.”

“You get paid to be loud, dumbass,” Eddie said. And there he went again! Insulting the cute boy he was out on a date with. But Richie’s eyes twinkled as he leaned over, waggling his eyebrows at Eddie.

“So, does that mean you like it?” he asked. Eddie rolled his eyes and leaned back in the booth.

“I don’t dislike it,” he said, and Richie beamed at him. 

“You’re gonna live to regret saying that,” he promised. He stuffed a too-large bill in the waiter’s hand and told him to keep the change, then took Eddie’s hand. Eddie had a brief moment of panic (Richie hadn’t washed his hands coming into the restaurant and God only knew where they had been all over subway poles all over New York probably) then let himself be taken, standing up with Richie, who was still smiling his insatiable smile.

“You tired yet, or up for some more of the night?” Richie asked.

“I don’t tire out that easily,” Eddie said.

“You sure? With the asthma and all I thought you might have one of those delicate Victorian constitutions, and-”

“Just let’s go, asshole,” Eddie said. He liked the sound of it, now that he’d done it again. Maybe insulting Richie was a kind of fondness, a pet name, and in any case, every time he insulted Richie the man just seemed to smile wider, so Eddie must not have been doing anything wrong. 

“I’ll lead the way, then,” Richie said, and he tugged Eddie out of the restaurant, leaving the curious gazes of the other patrons behind. Eddie was shocked to realize only then that the person he was going out with was moderately famous, and even if it was New York, they were perhaps attracting some attention. He was even more shocked to realize that he didn’t entirely mind. Eddie had never especially liked attention, but it didn’t seem to bother him, not when it was really on Richie and he was only tangentially related. 

It was snowing when they stepped outside, not in the sort of thick flakes that would stick to the ground, but wisp thin pieces of snow that melted when they landed. It wasn’t even really chill enough for it to be snowing, but it added to the ambiance of the night, the sort of soft winter glow cast over the whole evening. 

Richie was no longer tugging Eddie along behind him but walking side by side with him. He hadn’t dropped their hands though, so they were walking with the clasped hands swinging between the two of them. Eddie felt as though there were an electric current running up from their two hands through his arm and shoulder and into his chest, and though the sensation was very similar to anxiety, he found that it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. 

The two of them were walking for nearly ten blocks before Eddie caved and asked him where they were going.

“It’s a surprise, but not a very surprising one,” Richie said.

“We’re not going back to your place, are we?” Eddie asked. He reminded himself that he promised himself not to sleep with Richie on the first real date, although if they ended up at his apartment for a nightcap, he wasn’t certain he would be able to stop himself. Richie was weirdly irresistible to him. It wasn’t as though he was even Eddie’s type, he was just magnetically attractive.

“No, but would that have worked on you?” Richie asked.

“Probably,” Eddie admitted. “I’m not known for my stunning amounts of self-control. Or for resisting peer pressure.”

“You’re making me regret not bringing you back to my place, in that case,” Richie said. “But no. I go to a whole two places throughout my day, and we’re going to the one that isn’t my house. How’s that for a hint.”

“Wait, besides work?” Eddie asked. He had to take three steps for every two of Richie’s, his legs were so much shorter, even though they were the same height sitting up. He found his breath came a little short, but again, not so badly that he had to suck on his inhaler. “Wait, you mean work? You’re taking me to work with you?”

“Okay, I’m not going to work,” Richie said. “I’m taking you to the place in which I work.”

“This is your idea of a romantic outing?” Eddie said. “Taking my to your place of employment.”

“Will you just give me a minute?” Richie asked. Eddie smirked at him, and Richie gave a smile back, a tentative, hesitant smile, one that spoke of confidence but Eddie was sure secretly implied nervousness. It was sort of gorgeous on him. 

It was another ten blocks to the studio, but they weren’t actually that far away, which may have been why Richie had been so keen on the restaurant they had gone to. Richie swiped a metal striped card to let them into the building, past a security desk with one bored looking officer sitting at it. Richie nodded at him as they walked by, and if the officer sitting there looked a little bemused, he didn’t say anything to them. 

When they got in the elevator, Eddie was still teasing Richie.

“So, next time we go out,” he said. “Should I take you down to the office to look at the old driving records? We’ve got a whole fleet of cars to make out in, Titanic style.”

“You know, you’re making fun of me, but that sounds like a lot of fun and like it would make for a good story,” Richie said. “So I think the joke’s on you.” The two of them grinned at each other, and the elevator let out a soft ding.

“Besides,” Richie said. “This _is _where I take all my first dates, and I bet you’ll think it’s pretty cool.”

Richie led them down an industrial sort of hallway and then through a door marked with a few dozen “DO NOT ENTER” signs plastered to it. He pulled Eddie through, their hands still locked together, and Eddie sucked in his breath.

The two of them were on stage together in front of a sea of empty chairs, dim lights glowing up from the corners and crevices of the room so that the light filtered in looked like a sunset behind closed curtains. Richie pulled him to the center of the empty stage, and under the strange lighting it felt unearthly and dream like.

“What do you think?” Richie asked.

“This is…. The musician stage?” Eddie guessed.

“Yep,” Richie said. “I like to show up sometimes. Monologue to myself, other self-centered stuff.”

“The light,” Eddie murmured. “How do they get it like this?”

“It’s supposed to look natural,” Richie said. “For when we’re working late.”

“Which is most of the time, for a late show,” Eddie guessed, and Richie tipped his head in acknowledgement. Even without a crowd, the huge room was overwhelming, like being on stage at an auditorium. Eddie was struck with a strange and sudden bout of stage fright.

“This is the SNL stage,” he said. “Like, _the _stage.”

“I thought it was lame to bring your date to work with you?” Richie said. He was gloating, a little bit, and Eddie rolled his eyes. “Are you willing to admit that I’m actually pretty cool?”

“That you’re cool?” Eddie asked. “Never. I’m not done making fun of you yet.”

Richie stepped closer to him, their noses almost touching.

“I’ll keep trying, then,” he said. “You think I’m funny, at least?”

“Sometimes,” Eddie said. 

“Like I said, then,” Richie said. He was so close that Eddie could feel the breath of Richie’s words on his lips. “I’ll keep trying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all, thanks for reading this even though people are getting less and less into IT content (eek). If you're interested in beta-ing, let me know here or at royalcrestkaspbrak on tumblr


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie and Eddie get introduced to each other's squads, use the b-word, and generally have falling in love shenanigans.

April 10th, 2003. 11:31 PM.

“So,” said Richie. “When do I get to meet the parents? The metaphorical parents, that is, because, you know, I’ve heard about your mom, and all, but I assume someone like you gets adopted by mom friends on the regular.”

“So, okay, go back and rephrase that,” Eddie said, shaking his head to try and make sense of the convoluted speech his boyfriend had made. “Are you asking when you get to meet my friends?”

“Yes,” Richie said. “I’m asking when I get to meet your friends.”

“Well, when do I get to meet your friends?” asked Eddie, clearly stalling.

“Anytime you want to come down to the studio,” Richie said. Damn. Eddie was caught.

“I don’t know that my friends will be that… friendly,” Eddie admitted. “They were around the first few times we met up, and they’re a little… grudge holding.” 

“They think I’m a total sleaze bag?” Richie said.

“A little,” Eddie said.

“Guess we don’t have much to refute that,” Richie said, gesturing down at the two of them. The two were lying in Richie’s bed together, the TV at the foot of the bed on but could have been playing anything from porn to _Schindler’s List _for all the attention they were paying to it. All the clothes they had on, between the two of them, were Eddie’s boxers and Richie’s pajama bottoms, which was more than fine by Eddie.

Richie was his boyfriend, he was pretty sure. He hadn’t said it in so many words, but Eddie could think of no alternate explanation for the past few weeks. They went out to dinner a couple other times, but their schedules were too busy to fit each other in for fancy dinner dates most of the time. Generally, they filled in the gaps in their day with each other. Richie would turn up at the office with a cup of coffee for Eddie, or Eddie would pick Richie up after rehearsals and drive him back to his place. They spent nights at Richie’s place or in hotels (never at Eddie’s, though Richie had suggested it before) and Eddie felt, cliche as it was, complete somehow. It was as though he’d been operating with half the number of limbs he was supposed to have up until he met Richie, or had somehow been living with his hands and feet bound before knowing him. He felt whole and unbound with Richie, like a fuller and more distilled version of himself. 

Of course, he didn’t say all of that to Richie. He hadn’t even called Richie his boyfriend to his face, for fear of scaring him off. He supposed it was a mutual feeling that they would be betrayed if one of them went around kissing other people, and that was enough for Eddie at the moment. He didn’t seem to need a big name on the commitment, it was enough to know that it was there, and he trusted that it was. 

But this same sort of thing might not make sense for his overprotective friends, and Eddie didn’t want to go through the song and dance of introducing a new boyfriend, much less the process of determining if the person in question even was his boyfriend. Those were a few conversations he wouldn’t mind skipping out on. 

“You’re not sleazy,” Eddie argued, one leg draped over Richie’s lap. “You’re just....eager.”

“Pot, kettle,” Richie said, but he grabbed Eddie by the leg and pulled him up closer, so that his mouth was in kissing distance. They pressed their lips together, and Eddie thought, inanely as always _This is nice_. Richie reduced him to simple sentences, made him feel nothing but basic emotions. He felt simply good, simply fine around Richie, with no undercurrents of anxiety or worry or eschatological terror. 

“I’m serious,” Richie said between soft kisses, lips pressing to lips with no rush or hurry or impatience behind them. “I want to meet your friends. And, frankly, I want you to meet my friends.”

Well, since Eddie wasn’t going to get any calmer, he figured there was no time like the present.

“What as?” he asked. “I mean, am I going as your date? Your ‘boy toy’ like the tabloids call it?”

“I was thinking you would be going as my boyfriend,” Richie said. “If that’s okay with you.”

It wasn’t even really a question, but there was query in the words, and Richie’s skin was just the slightest shade pinker. It was deeply endearing to Eddie, who loved every shade of skin he saw on Richie.

“Are we boyfriends?” Eddie asked, hoping he sounded eager rather than challenging, but not too eager, not too easy. (_Eddie-bear you just come on so strong it’s not your fault you’re too intense for the other kids to befriend easily-_)

“I hoped,” Richie said. The naked honesty in the words and in his eyes was breathtaking.

“I hoped the same,” Eddie said. Richie beamed at him then, his grin spreading from ear to ear.

“Cool,” he said, leaning up to kiss Eddie. “Then introduce me to your friends.”

“Fine, fine,” Eddie laughed. Richie was kissing up and down his jaw like an overenthusiastic puppy, and he couldn’t help giggling.

“I wanna meet your friends, I wanna hear embarrassing stories about you!” Richie cried, and Eddie giggled, honest to god giggled, that was so embarrassing, but maybe not so much because it was Richie.

“Okay, okay!” Eddie cried. “I give in, I’ll introduce you. We always go to the same bar: are you free Saturday nights?”

“Is that a joke?” Richie asked, and Eddie snorted.

“Yeah, was it funny?”

“Maybe leave the jokes to me, hot shot,” Richie said. “And here I thought you watched my show on Saturday nights.”

“The whole country watches your show on Saturday nights, is that not enough for you?” Eddie asked, poking Richie in the middle of his bare chest. “Needy.”

“I need my boyfriend to be watching, to validate me every week,” Richie said. “Watch my show and then take me out to meet your friends and then home to meet your mother!”

“You’re impossible,” Eddie told him. “What are you doing Sunday?”

“Meeting my boyfriend’s friends,” Richie said, still beaming. 

April 13th, 2003. 10:01 PM.

“Are you gonna be nice?” Eddie asked. 

“Nope,” said Jessica. She caught the straw of her drink in her mouth and took a sip, staring Eddie down the whole time. “Not until he earns it.”

“Back me up?” Eddie said to Demetrios, who looked sympathetic, but shook his head.

“He’s been a bit of a dick,” Demetrios said. “Plus, if Jess gets to be mean to him, I get to be mean to him too.”

“No, no, no!” Eddie said. “Nobody gets to be mean to him, okay? You’re going to be nice, because he’s my boyfriend, and you’re not going to embarrass me! Please?”

“Eddie, relax, we’re not gonna be dicks,” Jessica said. “You’re a grown up, you get to make your own decisions. We’re not Mrs. K, thank God for that.”

“_Want one from me too, Mrs. K?_”

Eddie shook off the sudden, errant memory. He wrinkled up his nose.

“Don’t call my mom that,” he said. 

“Is she ever gonna meet your boyfriend?” Demetrios asked.

“Oh, no chance in hell,” Eddie said. “Hell could go through several ice ages before I tell my mom I’m seeing anyone, let alone a boy, let alone Richie fucking Tozier from Saturday Night Live.”

“My reputation precedes me, I see.”

Eddie, Demetrios, and Jessica all looked up to see Richie standing over their table, casting his lanky shadow over them. He didn’t have the same presence that Eddie was used to on TV, didn’t have the same overwhelming charisma that made him look both powerful and like a bit of a jackass. In reality, he was gangly, a little awkward about his height, standing slumped forward with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. His glasses hung onto the tip of his nose, a little smudged, and he looked, to Eddie, unbearably gorgeous.

“Hey,” Eddie said, a dopey smile spreading across his face. He was working on a line - a good line, not a “Hey there, stranger” or a “Come here often?” when Jessica bounced up out of her seat and stuck out her hand. 

“You must be Richie,” she said. “Pleased to see you were bothered to show up.”

“Jess,” Eddie said through his teeth, but Richie just smiled amiably and took the seat next to her, across from Eddie. 

“Pleasure’s all mine, I promise. So, Eddie’s friends, I’m guessing you’re Demetrios and that’s Jessica, right?” he said, pointing to the wrong people. A weak joke, in Eddie’s opinion, but it got both of them laughing. 

“I’m not actually Eddie’s friend,” Demetrios said blithely. “I’m an indentured servant with a long history of hating my master, and I was hoping you’d free me from him and get me a part on one of them comedic television programs.”

“No such luck, I’m afraid, I’ve been paid off from freeing anyone with the best currency in the book. Sex,” Richie said, and Eddie kicked him under the table. Still, annoyed as he was trying to be, he could see Demetrios and Jessica warming up to Richie, could see both of their smiles growing more natural and less forced by the moment. And it was easy to see why. Richie was hard not to like.

The four of them drank late into the night, even though all of them had work in the morning. It must be tough, Eddie mused, working someplace that kept you busy every Saturday night. No time to go out with friends unless you took time away from sleeping or eating. Richie put down an enormous, party sized plate of quesadillas along with all his drinks, so Eddie supposed that perhaps eating wasn’t so big of a problem as he thought. 

By the time Richie excused himself to go home (alone, to Eddie’s chagrin) he could tell his friends were platonically smitten. Demetrios had pressed his card into Richie’s hand and told him that if he ever needed a ride (“Well, the other kind of ride,” he’d said, flashing a wink at Eddie.) Jessica had also handed Richie her card, and a miniature headshot that she apparently kept on her person at all times, and said “I know your show doesn’t really need extras, but if they ever change the structure, let me know.” And, to Eddie’s surprise, Richie promised he would indeed let her know if it ever came up. 

When he stood up well after midnight, it was to the loud protests of everyone at the table, Eddie the quietest of them all, because as sad as he was to see Richie go, he wanted to drill his friends on their every thought, everything they had picked up on. He’d never interacted with Richie around people he knew before, and he was curious to see how they were together outside of their two-person bubble.

Richie stood up from the table and leaned over to Eddie, pressing a kiss to the top of his scalp, out there, in a bar, in full view of everyone. Sparks like soda bubbles flew down from where he had been kissed down through his bones and all the way out to his fingertips and the soles of his feet. 

“See you later, babe,” Richie said, and Eddie could swear that no word had ever sounded better. He squeezed Richie’s hand and watched him as he walked out the door. 

“You gonna watch that ass all the way out the door?” Jessica asked, and Eddie felt his face flush as he turned back to the table. 

“It’s a nice ass,” Eddie said, trying to sound nonchalant, but sure that his face was tomato red.

“Yeah, it’s about as flat as yours is, so I can understand the confusion,” Jessica said. “But I’m glad someone’s enjoying it.”

“Rude,” Demetrios said, tossing a wadded up napkin in her face. “We did not come here to insult the flatness of Eddie’s boyfriend’s ass.”

“Thank you,” Eddie said. He kept his eyes on the table and tried not to look mortified. With his luck, he thought, Richie would be just around the corner, listening to his friends insulting his ass. That would be typical.

“We’re here to tell Eddie that we sort of approve of his celebrity boyfriend,” Demetrios continued.

“Thank you!,” Eddie said again, emphatically, then- “Wait, ‘sort of’? Why ‘sort of’?”

“He was still a dick to you and we haven’t fully forgiven him,” Demetrios said. Jessica nodded when Eddie turned to her, and Eddie let his head slam down onto the table, unbearably frustrated with both of them.

“Whoa, Ed!” Jessica said. He sat up and gave her a disparaging look.

“What? What now?” he asked, and she stared at him in disbelief. 

“The table…” she said, and Eddie shook his head.

“Yeah? You guys are being dicks, what of it?”

“You touched the table without wiping it down first,” Jessica said. And, huh. Eddie supposed that he had.

April 17th, 2003. 6:37 AM

Meeting Richie’s friends should have been easier, Eddie thought. He shouldn’t be nervous because there was no way Richie had talked to his friends ahead of time or joked about the neurotic weirdo he’d slept with a couple of times. Except-

“Oh God,” Eddie groaned, his mouth half buried in Richie’s chest. “I’m the laughing stock of mother fucking Saturday Night Live. You know how bad you have to be to have comedians laugh at you?!”

“I didn’t, like, say you had a small dick or anything like that,” Richie told him. “I just said I’d had a one night stand, that became a two night stand… the jokes were really more about me anyway, you know, ‘oh that Tozier, sleeping through the boys of New York-’”

“That’s not funny!” Eddie wailed. “What did you tell them about me?”

“Nothing much,” Richie said. “Just that it happened, and then it happened again, and then- look, they didn’t even know it was you when you were driving us around on my birthday. Not till later, anyway.”

“So, they know everything,” Eddie said. “Including the fact that I’m a massive dumbass who’s already completely whipped for you.”

“I think it’s sweet that you’re whipped for me?” Richie tried.

The two of them were in Richie’s apartment, again, because Richie’s apartment had none of the glaring problems that Eddie’s apartment had, i.e. being right next door to his mother’s apartment. Also, Richie’s place was in Manhattan and close to everything. When Eddie asked him how he could afford it, Richie said he couldn’t and winked at Eddie, and Eddie wasn’t entirely sure what that meant.

They were on the couch in Richie’s apartment, Eddie mostly in Richie’s lap, and his face stuck in Richie’s armpit. He wasn’t usually like this with boyfriends (not that he’d had so many in the past) and he was never like this so early into a relationship. He wasn’t touchy, he wasn’t all over people, he didn’t have sex before getting together, and the one time he’d gone into a one night stand before Richie, he’d actually asked to see a medical record beforehand. Eddie wasn’t the same person he usually was when he was with Richie, and he liked it, even though it scared the hell out of him. 

“I don’t mean to be whipped for you,” Eddie said. “You’re just deeply sexy, in spite of the fact that my friends think you have a flat ass.”

“Thank- what?” Richie said. “Babe, do your friends really think I have a flat ass?”

“I like your ass,” Eddie said.

“Not what I asked,” Richie said.

“Not the point,” Eddie told him. “The point is that all your friends probably think I’m some pathetic starfucker that cajoled you into sleeping with me until you caught feelings.”

“You seriously overestimate how protective my friends are of me,” Richie told him. “At worst, they think you’re a starfucker that got lucky.”

“Rich.”

“Sorry, sorry, I figured honesty was the best policy, is it not?” 

“Maybe not just now, no,” Eddie said. He was trying not to be miserable, especially when Richie had been such a good sport meeting his friends, better than a good sport, even, he’d gone in eagerly knowing he was at a disadvantage and still charmed the pants off of them. Eddie should be eager to meet his friends too. Hell, he should be eager to meet his friends no matter what they thought of him. He was a human being who had seen Tina Fey on TV before, he should be excited, but all he felt was a curdling sense of dread in the pit of his stomach. 

“Relax, babe,” Richie pleaded. “I’ve already won them over to your side with my irresistible charm,” he flashed a grin, and Eddie rolled his eyes. “All you have to do is show up. They’re going to love you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie said. “Whatever you say. You sure you want me to visit you at work, though? Won’t it be a little hectic?”

“What do you know about what it’s like behind the scenes on a live TV show?” Richie asked. Eddie couldn’t tell if it was rhetorical or not. 

“That it’s… hectic?” Eddie said. Richie grinned at him.

“It’ll be fun,” he said. “Trust me.”

April 23rd, 2003. 4:57 PM

Eddie had guessed right. No matter the day of the week, including the innocuous Wednesday, the studio was busy and bustling, and, as predicted, very hectic. Eddie got run into by three people just trying to make his way up to Richie’s floor because he wasn’t walking fast enough, and by the time he found Richie, he was certain he was sporting bruises on his hips and his ribs from people elbowing past him.

_(and Eddie always bruised so easily he had delicate skin delicate tissue he had to be careful of those things little injuries can build up and lead to so much more-)_

“Hey, babe!” Richie said brightly. He ducked under two people’s arms and skirted around a moving piece of scenery and pulled Eddie into a genial kiss on the cheek. Eddie felt his cheek burn from the kiss, and he pulled away with a shy smile.

“Hi,” Eddie said. “So, things look busy around here.”

“Yeah, it’s the gig,” Richie said. “Yo, guys! Eddie’s here!”

From all around the stage, from the seats for the live studio audience, and up behind the scenes from where Eddie couldn’t see where the voices came from, everyone called back “Hi, Eddie.”

“That’s weird,” Eddie said. “Did you guys practice that? It was weird.”

“Yeah, we practiced for hours, specifically to freak you out, Eds,” Richie said sarcastically, but Eddie couldn’t help, through the annoyance, feeling his heart flutter a little at the sound of the nickname. _Eds, Eds, Eds_. It was familiar in a way he couldn’t explain even to himself. “C’mon, meet the gang.”

Richie cycled Eddie through hellos with, it seemed like, everyone there. The camera men, the boom operators, the people backstage wearing jumpsuits designed for doing labor in and those that were in sharp suits and heels that clacked on the wooden floor. And then-

“Eds, this is Tina-”

“The driver!” Tina Fey said, looking thrilled as she grinned at him. She stuck out her hand and Eddie shook it numbly. He was meeting the cast of SNL, a Weekend Update anchor, nonetheless. 

“You remember me,” Eddie said, trying to sound excited, as though it were a fond memory for both of them rather than something that was embarrassing at best.

“I remember every cute boy I try to hook Richie up with, I’m just glad it finally worked, for once,” she said, and rolled her eyes at Richie. “This guy is unbelievably picky, I swear.”

“Glad I could live up to such high standards,” Eddie said, and Tina Fey nodded at him sagely.

“I hear he’s fantastic, not that I’d know,” she said conspiratorially. “Can you tell me-”

“Okay, we’re done,” Richie said, a fake smile plastered across his face. “Thanks for being such a good sport, Eds-”

“No, I’m having a great time,” Eddie said, biting back a grin of his own. “You heard right, he is fantastic. He’s also got a monster-”

“Anyway,” Richie said, his voice shooting up an octave. He pulled Eddie away and glared at him.

“What?” said Eddie. “I’m talking you up.”

“Leave the comedy to me, babe,” Richie said, and Eddie laughed.

“Not in your wildest dreams,” he said. “But I’ll only say nice things, I promise.”

“You’re insufferable,” Richie told him. Before Eddie could stop himself, he blurted out-

“Yeah, but you love me.”

And that. That was something they hadn’t broached yet. Nobody had said the L word, because it was roughly a million years too soon for that. Richie had run away from a one night stand because he was afraid that feelings might get too attached, and Eddie was going and fucking it up by mentioning love. He was certain that Richie would freeze up, stutter something, hell, maybe he would even ghost Eddie once again, disappear into the night and all that would remain was a memory of the word “boyfriend” and how nice the nickname “Eds” sounded on Richie’s lips.

So, Eddie was deeply and profoundly surprised when Richie grinned and said:

“Yeah, I do.”

He seemed to realize what he said after he said it. Possibly because Eddie was staring at him in wide-eyed disbelief, he blinked down at him, looking suddenly uncertain.

“Sorry,” said Richie, pushing his glasses higher up on his nose. “Um. I didn’t mean- I did mean, but I- you know.”

“I know,” Eddie said quickly. He had no idea what it was he was supposed to know, but Richie was like a scared deer that could bolt for it at any second, so Eddie figured it was best to simply say he knew and not question it too much. 

“But anyway,” Richie pushed his glasses up again, though they hadn’t really slid down his nose at all. “Um, what all else is there to show you?”

“Well, I’ve met all the stars more famous than you, so clearly it’s time for my starfucking self to move on,” Eddie said, his voice thick with sarcasm.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Richie said. “I’ve already tried, and Jimmy Fallon doesn’t swing our way.”

“Damn,” Eddie said. “That’s rough, because you know, he’s much more my type.”

“Oh, come on, Eds,” Richie said. “You like ‘em tall and gawky and four-eyed.”

Eddie did like them tall and a little awkward, with curly hair and glasses, but he wasn’t about to tell Richie just how much of Eddie’s type he was and inflate his ego even more.

“Don’t call me Eds,” he said instead. “Eddie’s already a nickname, and one that makes me sound like a twelve-year-old, for the record.”

“A cute twelve-year-old,” Richie said, and Eddie wrinkled up his nose.

“Don’t say that, it sounds creepy,” he said.

“I bet you were adorable in middle school.”

“Drop it.”

“Oh, I wanna see old yearbook photos. I bet you were cute, cute, cute!” Richie pinched Eddie’s cheek as he did, and as Eddie ducked away he was hit with a sense of deja vu so strong he almost fell over. 

_Cute, cute, cute!_

“You good?” Richie asked. Eddie blinked up at him.

“Yeah,” Eddie said, and he shook his head, then scowled. “Don’t call me cute, asshole.”

“Ah, I see we’re already getting into the fond pet names,” Richie said. “My ex called me ‘asshole’ too.”

“Have you considered it’s because you’re being an asshole?” 

“No, I think it’s just that I have a type,” Richie said. Eddie rolled his eyes once again.

“Gay men always have types.”

“And yours is famous, right?”

“I’m planning on leaving you for Jimmy as soon as he switches teams.”

Richie pulled Eddie close and kissed him on the top of the head.

“Oh, Eds, you’re gonna get along with my friends just fine.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie and Eddie go on a couple's vacation together - or attempt to, anyway.

June 18th, 2003. 11:24 PM

Summer came to New York not with the blooming flowers and New England storms of Eddie’s distantly recalled youth, but with a baking heat and the smell of trash cooking in melting plastic on the streets. With summer and the all-pervading heat there came also the tourists, millions of people flooding the city to see the Statue of Liberty and visit the sludgey remains of Coney Island, and a lot of those people were rich enough to rent a car and driver for their weekends in New York.

This meant that Eddie was very busy, and when Eddie was busy, there was no time for him to be with Richie, who was also very busy. It was usually Eddie who managed to squeeze himself into the cracks in Richie’s schedule, but with both of them constantly working, they had only the meanest hours of the morning in which to spend with one another.

One night when Richie was (safely, secretly) over at Eddie’s apartment, he slung his leg around Eddie’s waist and said:

“You seem tense, babe.”

“I wonder why,” Eddie said sarcastically. “Can’t be because Demetrios got sick and I’ve worked every day for the past two weeks without a day off. Or because the tourists coming in never tip, and always ask for the weirdest shit, and keep me well past the assigned hours. Or that I haven’t been sleeping because I spend my nights with some lame comedian.”

“Yeah, I know this is really taxing you,” Richie said. “Sex with me isn’t an excellent way to blow off steam at all.”

“Stop inflating your own ego, it’s inappropriate,” Eddie grumbled, but he twisted himself closer to Richie nonetheless, pressing them somehow more tightly together. Richie was a cuddly dude post-coital, and Eddie didn’t mind it one bit. Jessica teased him about it (“Isn’t he so bony? Cuddling him has to be sharp, right?”) but Eddie and Richie fit together like puzzle pieces.

“What I was trying to build up to, but you’re forcing me to jump to the point,” Richie said, “Is that I think you should take a vacation.”

Eddie blinked up at him. 

“A vacation?” he said. The word tasted foreign on his tongue.

“Yes,” Richie said with exaggerated slowness. “That’s when you take time off work, go somewhere nice and warm-”

“It’s plenty warm here,” Eddie interrupted.

“Somewhere warm and beachy, with white sands and the ocean tide,” Richie continued. “And you relax for a few days.”

“Huh,” said Eddie, playing along. “Doesn’t sound familiar to me.”

Richie snorted.

“Seriously, dork,” he said. “You could take it easy for a few days. Plan a vacation. _Relax_.”

“What would I do alone on a beach?” Eddie asked.

“Who said you would be alone?” Richie asked him. Eddie blinked at him.

“I didn’t think you were allowed to go on vacations in show business,” he said.

“We’re not, strictly speaking,” Richie said. “But I’m sure I could get away for, say, two days and one night, assuming we go at the beginning of the week.”

“The term ‘long-weekend’ doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?” Eddie asked.

“You’re the one who needed me to explain to you what a vacation was. So, maybe neither of us is that good at taking time away from our careers. I think it’ll be good for us.”

“So, to clarify,” said Eddie, smiling a little into Richie’s hair, thick and curly and-

_familiar_

-smooth. “You want to go on a couple’s trip?”

“Well, it sounds gross when you say it like that,” Richie said. “But yes.”

“You wanna take me to a bed and breakfast up in Provincetown, really gay the whole thing up?”

“Hey, mock if you want, but Provincetown is lovely this time of year.”

“You want to take me to Provincetown?” Eddie asked, still grinning. “You know, we’re coming up on hurricane season, and it’s not the safest part of the Eastern seaboard-” 

“I want to take you everywhere, just put you in my pocket and have a little hypochondriac telling me I’m being unsafe wherever I go, but that’s unrealistic, so yes, I’d like to take you to Provincetown.”

Richie twisted so they were facing each other. Eddie was struck breathless as usual when he saw Richie’s eyes, and he cursed his soft heart for being so hopelessly in love. 

“What do you say?” asked Richie, unleashing the full force of his eyes on Eddie. Eddie gulped.

“I’ll see when I can get some time off,” he said. Richie smiled his irresistible smile up at him, and Eddie felt the corners of his mouth pulling up in return.

***

September 6th, 2003. 8:31 PM

It took until early September for both of them to get two days off at the same time, and Eddie said blandly that it was a miracle they figured it out as soon as they did. Of course, the problem that Eddie somehow hadn’t foreseen was his mother.

“You haven’t told her yet?” Demetrios asked, his eyes wide with horror.

“Yeah, it’s just a couple of days,” Eddie said.

“Dude,” said Jessica. “When was the last time you went anywhere for a couple of days? Hell, when was the last time you missed getting home from your boyfriend’s in time for her morning meds? You’re never not there, and she’s gonna freak.”

“She’s not gonna freak,” said Eddie, feeling a fluttering in the pit of his stomach that told him that she was absolutely going to freak.

“She’s gonna freak,” said Demetrios. “And you’re gonna have to cancel on him at the last minute, and he’s gonna get mad at you, and you’re gonna get mad at him even though you know he’s right, and it’s gonna be a mess.”

“It is not,” Eddie said. “And anyway, I’m not backing out of this. No matter what. I’m going home and I’m gonna tell her now.”

“Good luck,” Jessica said. “We’re gonna throw you an amazing funeral if you die there.”

“Thanks,” Eddie said sourly.

***

September 6th, 2003. 10:42 PM

He didn’t bother knocking before he entered his mom’s apartment. He never did, but then, he never visited so late in the evenings, when he could avoid it. Her face lit up when he walked in.

“Eddie-Bear!” she cried. “I thought I heard the door earlier and assumed you’d be asleep!”

“Must’ve been one of the neighbors,” Eddie said, and he steeled himself. “I’m taking a couple days off this week.”

“Good!” she said fervently, shocking him. “I’ve always said that you work yourself too hard, so you ought to take some time off.”

“Oh,” said Eddie, confused. “Well, yeah, thanks. I have been working really hard lately. So, I’ll organize your medication ahead of time, that way it’ll all be ready for you when you need to take them, and-”

“Why would you need to measure out my medication ahead of time?” she asked, and Eddie felt his heart sink to somewhere down around his stomach.

“Because I won’t be here,” he said slowly. She made a face, like she was trying to understand a difficult math problem.

“Won’t be here?” she said. “Why on earth not, Eddie?”

“I’m going on a vacation with a- a friend,” Eddie said. (No part of him was ready to come out to his mom yet, and he doubted he ever would be, which was starting to make him nervous. If he and Richie stayed together longer, got further in their relationship, they’d have to talk to his mom eventually, have to tell her if they got married, but what was Eddie doing thinking about marriage when they’d only been together a few months?)

“Without me?” she asked, pouting a ridiculous, childish pout. “Where would you go without your dear old mom, Eddie-Bear?”

“It’s kind of, just for us,” Eddie said, and Jesus, but it sounded like he was giving his mom a break up speech, and he did not want to get into the reasons why that was. “I mean, I love you, Mom, I just need a break from the city.”

“Why not bring me with? I get tired of the city air too,” she said, and Eddie shook his head quickly. 

“No, I know,” he said. “I’ll take you out somewhere soon too, but I need to go out on my own.”

“I thought you were going with a friend,” she said, and before he could stop himself, Eddie blurted out-

“No, I mean without you.”

Sonya Kaspbrak looked thunderstruck.

“Well then,” she said. “I just hope you don’t get sick around your friend and end up needing me.”

“Mom,” Eddie protested weakly. “I’m not gonna get sick, and I’m pretty sure everyone knows how to work an Epi-Pen.”

“Does your friend know how sick you are? Does he know all the medications you need to take? Does he know your doctor’s number to call if you have an asthma attack?”

Eddie’s throat felt tight even as she asked him.

“No,” he said with the pinhole of air coming from his windpipe. “No, but I’m an adult and I know how to take care of myself.”

“I just wooorry about you, Eddie,” she said. “You’re so delicate, and I don’t want you to get hurt. What friend is this anyway? It’s not that Demetrios, is it?”

“No, Ma, Demetrios is covering for me at work,” Eddie said. “It doesn’t matter, look, I’ve already booked the whole thing, and I’m going. I’m leaving in a couple days, but I promise you’ll be all set when I leave.”

Mrs. Kaspbrak sniffed. She looked like she might cry, her eyes all scrunched up and her lip wobbling, but her eyes were notably dry.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately,” she said. “Leaving your mother behind to go gallivanting all over with some stranger, but fine. If that’s what you want, just please, please tell me you’ll be going somewhere safe.”

“Provincetown,” said Eddie before he could think long enough to stop himself. Her face screwed up, no longer in tears but what looked like rage.

“That fag town?” she asked. “What are you doing going there?”

And oh, but this was too close. There was a cold fist around Eddie’s heart with heavy fingers worming their way up to his throat, closing around his vocal cords. 

“Um,” said Eddie. “I didn’t realize it had, a, uh, reputation, but I’m just- they have nice beaches, good clam chowder.”

Eddie hated shellfish, but his mother didn’t call him on it. Perhaps she didn’t even remember. 

“Your friend isn’t one of those queer boys, is he?” she asked, and Eddie, stupidly, cowardly, shook his head.

“Nope,” he said. “We’re just going for the scenic views. And it’s late, I really need to take my evening meds-”

“Go,” she said then, the one thing that was guaranteed to get her out of Eddie’s hair was medical necessity. “Go take your meds, but we’ll talk more tomorrow, all right?”

“Okay,” Eddie said, weakly, meekly. “But I- I am still going?” He hated how it sounded, like he was asking her for permission even then.

“Hmph,” she said. Eddie slunk out the door and back into his own apartment, sliding down the door as it shut behind him, trying to keep the world out. 

***

September 8th, 2003. 10:15 AM

The thought occurred to Eddie that, if it were anyone else but Richie, he might not have been able to do this. Jessica and Demetrios would have been right, and Eddie thought back on all the excursions that he had skipped at the behest of his mother, but this time he was going anyway. He fielded off all her concerns and in the end, even when she cried, Eddie told her firmly that he was going anyway. She sobbed and asked why he hated her, how he could be so cruel, and rather than responding he just went into the kitchen and prepped her medication, pouring her morning pills for the one morning he wouldn’t be there into a tiny little tupperware container for her. 

His own medicine cabinet was a hard fit. He couldn’t very well go without any of it. He had his regular heart medication, SSRI, all the vitamin supplements he had to take every day, the iron and fish oil and B complex and C, his melatonin for night time (though he also brought some Ambien he had left over, in case he really needed help falling asleep in a new place.) He also packed everything he would need for first aid in case of a minor scrape or an unexpected elephant stampede, and pain medication to go with it. It didn’t seem like all that much to him, just basic necessity, but when he packed it all, he realized that it took up a good half of his duffel bag, and he hadn’t even brought everything. 

Nevertheless, he gave his mom her morning medication and took his own pills-

_placebos_

-and met Richie at his apartment.

“You moving in there, Eds?” Richie asked, eyeing his bag, and Eddie scowled at him. He’d thought he had packed light, but Richie appeared to have just a backpack slung over his shoulder.

“Compensating for you, apparently,” he said, and Richie grinned at him. 

“Certainly you’re not compensating for anything else,” he said. “I would know.”

Eddie elbowed him, but didn’t actually complain aloud. 

Eddie drove, though Richie pleaded to. Richie insisted that it was Eddie’s vacation, that he shouldn’t have to work, but Eddie refuted him saying that he liked driving, and he did. It was a soothing, almost meditative process when he got into it. When he wasn’t driving, he could be anxious about all the different ways you could die in a car, but when he was driving, there was so much to focus on that it was like there wasn’t room in his brain to be anxious about the wheels falling off or hitting a patch of black ice or the engine exploding without warning. There was room only for him to shift gears and know - not wonder, but know - which way he was going next. 

But, for whatever reason, he was still a very anxious passenger, so he refused to give up the car keys to Richie, and Richie eventually gave in, grumbling for the first fifty miles about how stubborn Eddie was. 

It took them the better part of the day simply to make it out to Provincetown, where Richie had rented an ostentatious house right on the coast. Eddie had complained that it was far too grand for just the two of them, but once he was inside he had to admit that the place was gorgeous. It was a drafty, historical house with a widow’s walk on top and a fireplace on the bottom level. 

(Of said fireplace, Richie immediately lit a fire inside and proceeded to fill up the whole house with smoke by failing to open the flue first, but he and Eddie were able eventually to open it up and chase all the smoke out of the living room.)

The house had a tiny yard which opened out onto a beach, and they had barely settled in before Richie had pulled on swim trunks and was dragging Eddie out onto the sand.

“C’mon c’mon c’mon!” he pleaded, eager as a kid on Christmas morning. “Eddie, c’mon, we gotta get your clothes off and get you in the water!”

“Slow down!” Eddie pleaded with him, though the rebuke was slightly undercut by the fact that he was grinning hugely at Richie. Richie’s delight was something infectious, like a seasonal flu Eddie never had a prayer of not catching. “We have to put on sunscreen first, and we should probably check the news, or local weather coverage, see if there’s any danger of riptides-”

Richie groaned.

“Eddie, you are sucking all the fun out of vacation,” he said, and though he said it teasingly, Eddie felt some amount of real hurt. He was trying his hardest, whether Richie could tell of not. It was perhaps because of this that he spoke slightly sourly.

“Sorry,” he said. “You may have dragged me out to Massachusetts, but this we’re doing my way. Safely.”

Eddie slathered Richie in sunscreen, rubbing it in quickly but pointedly, and ignoring all the jokes Richie made while he did so. He made Richie get his back, and though it didn’t feel quite as thorough, Eddie let it slide, for once. 

The moment they were done, Richie had Eddie by the hand again and was right back to dragging Eddie out into the water. Eddie had a moment of panic when he saw the white-capped waves - _Eddie-Bear it’s not safe the water the riptide your lungs you could drown you could die _\- but he barely had time to let the panic well up in him before he was thrown into the icy spray, gasping for breath, but in the good way, the fun way, like he was a little kid. 

They played in the water for hours, until Eddie was exhausted. Richie body-boarded the whitecaps and Eddie eventually grew tired, his throat growing pinprick tight, and he had to wait on shore and suck on his inhaler for a while. 

Later, exhausted by the water and ready to eat, Richie suggested a restaurant he knew nearby, then raised his eyebrows at Eddie.

“Eds,” Richie said, getting down on one knee. For one moment, Eddie felt his heart fly up into his throat, then he saw the glint in Richie’s eyes, and realized it was a joke. (And he tried to tell himself that he only felt relief, and was in no way let down by the realization)

“Will you please let me fucking drive?” Richie asked.   
Eddie rolled his eyes.

“You’d better stay well below the speed limit,” he said, and Richie crowed in success. 

“Finally he concedes!” Richie cried. “I win! I’m driving to the restaurant and you can’t stop me now!”

“Don’t make me regret it,” Eddie said waspishly, but again, he was grinning, because it was time with Richie, and he could never truly mind that. 

It was just that Eddie did have his weird thing about driving, that he wasn’t comfortable with anyone else behind the wheel. Even Demetrios, who he’d known for years, who he trusted implicitly, who drove more often than anyone else in the company save for Eddie himself, even he didn’t get to drive on nights out. Eddie always took the wheel, because he couldn’t stand being in the passenger seat and thinking about all the things that could go wrong.

Somehow, it wasn’t like that with Richie. In spite of the fact that Richie cracked jokes and turned the radio up too loud and even glanced away from the road to look directly at Eddie to make sure Eddie had smiled in reaction to his jokes, he didn’t make Eddie nervous in the same way. Eddie felt safe with Richie, trusted him on a level even he couldn’t fully wrap his head around. 

Richie planned on driving them to a little steakhouse he’d been to before, one he claimed was not far up the road, but as he took turn after turn in the darkening Massachusetts evening, Eddie became thoroughly convinced they were lost.

“Are you sure you’re going the right way?” Eddie asked after they’d been on the road twenty minutes to get to a restaurant that was supposedly five minutes away. 

“I am completely positive,” said Richie, sounding deeply uncertain. 

Eddie, for his part, was one hundred percent certain that they were going the wrong way, but he leaned back in his seat, relaxed, and decided he would let Richie deal with it. 

About an hour later, they were well away from the coast, surrounded by trees, and in total darkness apart from the beams of their headlights.

“So, I think,” Richie said. “That I might be a little bit turned around.”

At this, Eddie lost it. He busted up laughing, doubled over so that his forehead touched his knees, and he laughed so hard that he was gasping for breath. Richie looked embarrassed at first, full of chagrin, his face red, but after a moment, he laughed alongside Eddie. It came on slowly at first, an unwilling chuckle, but then soon he had to pull over, because they were both laughing so hard that their laughter had gone soundless, neither of them able to get a word out. 

“Let me drive back?” Eddie asked when they could breathe again. He noted, idly, that he hadn’t needed his inhaler at all, and while it seemed strange, he wasn’t going to question it. 

“Fine, fine, you win,” Richie said. “I give up. You can drive.”

“Thank you,” Eddie said, holding his hand out for the keys. 

By the time they made it back to Provincetown, most of the restaurants were starting to close down for the evening. Eddie was instead able to find an all-night grocery store, where he bought eggs, bread, butter, and jam, with the intention of making eggs and toast for a very basic dinner.

Richie was still giggling when they got back to the big, empty house, and he turned on the radio as soon as they walked in. Richie pulled the spatula out of Eddie’s hand while he was cooking, set it down on the counter, and grabbed both of Eddie’s hands, pulling him into the center of the kitchen. He spun him round in a slow circle while the radio played a crackly old love song from the fifties, and Eddie thought that this was more than nice, it was right. He was sure, deep down in his bones, that he was exactly where he was meant to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the filler chapter, but I thought some good old-fashioned fluff was called for before we start getting back into the meat of the story. I hope you enjoyed, also, shoutout to my new beta who read over the story for me! Thank you!


End file.
